Big Apple club owners are dancing with joy after a mayor who loves the city and its nightlife finally decided to end the decades-old practice of raiding venues during late night prime time. .
The much-hated MARCH initiative, a multi-agency response to community hotspots, was launched by Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s to combat drug crime in the city. It was further adopted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg after banning indoor smoking.
“They came to bust my balls on a Saturday night and were looking for fruit flies on bottles at 1 a.m. They never came on Tuesdays or Thursdays at 10 p.m.,” said the restaurateur and nightlife expert. veteran Stratis Morfogen told Side Dish.
“We had to stop offering bottles until the inspection was done. It was very disruptive and unfortunately very personal. That's why I got out of the nightclub business. is.”
Eddie Dean, who owned Pacha, a popular A-list club in Midtown from 2005 to 2015, said his hotspot was subject to unwarranted harassment and two attacks, the first around 2007 and the second around 2007. He said the first time was around 2013, resulting in the club's closure and a loss of about $2 million. Revenue and more than $300,000 in legal fees.
Dean, who now runs the Industrial Club Szymanski in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said MARCH's policies were “really abused and selectively enforced.”
“Nightlife plays a huge role in New York City's economy, but for years club owners weren't respected as hard-working entrepreneurs. Mayor Adams is the first to show respect for nightlife. I'm the mayor.”
MARCH will now be replaced by an initiative called CURE (Coordination of Uniform Resolutions with Establishments), which relies on the city's Nightlife Department to act as an intermediary, Adams announced last week.
The agency will contact the business owner and first try to resolve the issue arising from the complaint. Surprise raids during business hours will no longer be a first step but a last resort, while the Nightlife Authority will continue to keep statistics on the number of tests and their results.
Paragon owner John Barclay said in a press conference last week that the end of MARCH will result in “hundreds, maybe more facilities, and certainly hundreds if not thousands of facilities in the future.” It can save jobs,'' he was quoted as saying.
The Nightlife Bureau was created in 2018 by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who named global hospitality and government consultant Ariel Palitz as its first director.
Paritz said the Nightlife Bureau began tracking the number of raids by 2019, when it was about 10 a month in all five boroughs.
“The fact that Mayor Adams goes out every night has become something of a joke, but he supports and values small businesses as assets rather than criminalizing them as liabilities,” said Palitz, who resigned last year. told Dish.
“The mayor's job is not 9 to 5. He respects the city 24 hours a day and the nightlife businesses that contribute to the city's economy and culture.”
