SLA Moratorium

As Crain's In$ider reports this morning the SLA has clarified its moratorium ruling, indicating that it is all-encompassing and even includes applicants whose licenses were already in the pipeline. This means that it is likely that a number of businesses poised to open will be sucking wind until the Authority decides that it is OK to move forward.

We're still puzzled as to how a putative problem with certain nightlife areas can apply to the entire borough of Manhattan. What this means, however, is that even those bars and clubs that have no problems with their local community boards will have to wait until the SLA's taskforce does its fact finding.

We also are wondering what the city is going to do if/or when the Authority tries to impose its own view of what constitutes "saturation" over the city's own zoning laws. All of which points to the knotty issue of trying to make sense of the 500 foot law (aka the "Bell Boulevard" law). If the Authority begins to seriously enforce a literal interpretation of this statute than NY's bars and clubs are in deep trouble.