TriBeCa's bi-level Puerto Rican restaurant Sazon has been having problems with its neighbors since it opened but rather than continue work it out the restaurant's owner is so fed up today he filed a multi-million dollar federal civil rights suit accusing the city, the State Liquor Authority and members of lower Manhattan's Community Board 1 of discriminating against the restaurant because its customers aren't "from this neighborhood." Owner Genaro Morales explained to us that the suit was a last resort, "we've made several attempts at mediating meetings with the CB and the community and nothing has gotten better."

At the heart of the matter is the fact that while Sazon's owners don't deny it has been the subject of tense community board meetings and strict rules they argue that other nearby places have, for no discernable reason, not been. Specifically, Ward III got its liquor license first and with fewer restrictions, despite opening months after Sazon. And that is costing Morales cash. He says he's spent mounds of moolah soundproofing the entire restaurant—"the amount of revenue I've lost not being able to stay open till four" is enormous says Morales, who also owns Sofrito on the East Side. "We're talking millions of dollars in lost revenue."

The final straw for Morales—who claims his restaurant has suffered a regular barrage of "unsubstantiated and frivolous noise complaints," not to mention a slew of racially charged remarks from neighbors—came when he claims the Community Board voted 37-1 to deny his restaurant the right to open a basement bar and hire a DJ in a "closed door emergency meeting."

The only problem is, as CB1 District Manager Noah Pfefferblit explained to us, that "closed door" meeting was actually the regularly scheduled full community board meeting, which is always open to the public. The issue was that the restaurant has had a slew of problems with the neighborhood—check out the community board resolution on Sazon [PDF]—that go beyond noise problems (apparently Sazon was, among other things, using cones to "reserve" parking). When Sazon approached the SLA committee last month for a second bar and a DJ, Pfefferblit says "we told them we would oppose it. But they went ahead with it. And we voted on it at the full board meeting."

"They have been in no way discriminated against," Pfefferblit says. The SLA board happily gave them their license when they first applied, he says, and "we welcome to them to the community." They just haven't been good neighbors.

When asked what he hopes to get out of the $50 million dollar lawsuit, Morales tells us he just wants to get the "same thing everybody else gets."