An East Village spot notorious for its pandemic parties has sued the State Liquor Authority after they voted to revoke their liquor license and shut them down for violations of the state's COVID-19 guidelines.
Provocateur, a former Meatpacking District club that closed a few years ago, recently came back to life during the coronavirus shutdown by throwing exclusive underground parties where tables cost thousands of dollars. The soirees were hosted at The Cloister Cafe, a.k.a. Café Tucano, located on 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, over the past month. (The lawsuit acknowledges that Provocateur operators Mike Satsky and Brian Gefter have been working with Cloister's owner Nick Drobenko on the events there.) A few days after Gothamist's report on the parties, investigators with the SLA and the Sheriff's Office visited and found them operating twice after 11 p.m.
According to the SLA report, investigators "found the restaurant operating as a nightclub and hookah lounge with a live DJ, documenting numerous patrons ignoring social distancing with lines of customers congregating in front of the premises without facial coverings, at least twenty patrons consuming alcohol indoors under a fixed roof, and no receipts for food purchases. The inspection identified thirty-three significant fire and life safety violations, with the NYC Sheriff's Office issuing seven criminal court summonses."
In their lawsuit, the restaurant's attorneys claim that the SLA relied mostly on Gothamist's reporting in deciding to suspend and revoke its liquor license, and that the closure was “uninvestigated and uninformed" and "based on a sole Instagram post.”
The SLA has been holding emergency board hearings nearly every day since Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered a crackdown on restaurants and bars breaking guidelines intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. At a meeting on August 7th to discuss Cloister Cafe, the SLA recounted all the violations which investigators found there, including “over 80 people inside... mingling, kissing, drinking.”
In addition to allegedly violating a restriction on gatherings of 50 or more, Cloister Cafe was also caught operating after the 11 p.m. curfew twice that night, for which there are no exceptions; in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim "Cloister Café is permitted to serve alcohol past 11:00 p.m."
The lawsuit also claims that Gothamist's article on the parties was "based entirely on social media posts and statements of Kristina Alaniesse." In fact, our reporting was based on interviews with nearly a dozen people, including almost half a dozen who had been to their events in person. Alaniesse did however post two damning videos which were taken at the spot on July 30th and which were cited by investigators—see below.
Multiple attendees told us masks and social distancing were not being enforced whatsoever at the club, and that parties were routinely going past 11 p.m. and early into the morning multiple times a week. One said he saw "hundreds of people, nobody is social distancing, nobody is wearing masks. It’s like the normal club scene. There’s a lot of spenders there. If they do social distancing, they can’t make money. They need to have a packed room full of people to make money."
Another person who went to an event there during the last week of July said, "it's obviously a nightclub environment. People are rolling up in Ubers, Maseratis, everyone's dressed like it's a nightclub."
SLA General Counsel Gary Meyerhoff said during a hearing (which you can watch below), "For the record, the point about the Gothamist story is that it suggests that this is the reason why we have this type of group of people in this location, which might add some background color to it. But the case before the members is there because they had [over] 70 people inside in the midst of a pandemic, something that's been illegal since March 16th. And all the other violations [in the record]."
SLA Chairman Vincent Bradley added, "They showed a complete disdain for following any laws, whether its the ABC law or the governor's executive orders. They clearly created a danger to the public health, safety and welfare, not just because of the virus, by creating a structure in the back that is completely illegal, and clearly should a fire have broken out or something of that nature, it could have caused a significant amount of injuries or death."
The SLA noted that although the kitchen was operational, they did not see anyone eating at the time, and found that receipts may have been tampered with. Those other violations include evidence that the backyard setup was an "illegal structure," with an obstructed rolldown gate, no flame proofing for curtains, unmounted fire extinguishers, and defective exit and emergency lights.
The owner, Drobenko, acknowledged to investigators that "he was aware that neighbors were making complaints against him for violations of social distancing," and police confirmed to the SLA that there were numerous 311 calls brought against them. The SLA said Drobenko "cannot claim he's not on notice to be violating the law in this secret premises that he's created, he's just taking full advantage in carrying on an illegal operation."
In a statement about the lawsuit, the SLA told Gothamist: “While we do not comment on pending litigation, any claim that Cafe Cloister’s summary suspension was based on social media posts or media accounts is demonstrably false. Both the New York City Sheriff’s Office and investigators with the state's multi-agency task force conducted an inspection of Cafe Cloister at approximately 12:30 am on August 7th — more than an hour after New York City’s 11:00 pm curfew for outdoor dining — and documented a multitude of violations, each of which put New Yorkers' health and safety in danger during a global pandemic. The only thing guiding our investigations is a mandate to protect public health and the actions of bar owners — rather than trying to divert attention through baseless claims, this licensee should take responsibility for their actions.”
