Neighborhood Threat

I had a class this evening so I didn’t arrive until close to 8pm, but any worries that I might have missed the festivities were assuaged immediately. It was standing room only, OG residents and hipster newcomers, everyone concerned about one thing: the 2/14 shooting incident at the Production Lounge, and the bar in general, as it’s been widely regarded in the neighborhood as troublesome from day 1.

I felt sorry for the Detective Inspector, as he patiently attempted to give calm answers to what was, essentially, the same question asked in 60 different ways. I don’t blame anyone - I know what it was like when we were fighting Studio B and no one cared except the handful of us right in the area - but at some point you have to realize that the police are not going to tell you exactly what they are going to do to deal with the bar because then the troublemakers are just going to do the opposite.
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Since other blogs have been writing off the Studio B situation as irrelevant, let me outline here what you need to do to fight this club, in my humble opinion:

1. Call 311 each and every single time there is a problem. Every time. Every night. Do not let them tell you that someone else just called in the same complaint or that there are already too many complaints. You are well within your rights to insist that they take your complaint.
2. If 311 gives you numbers of other city agencies to call your complaints into during business hours, take down the numbers and DO IT.
3. Call the non-emergency line of the 94th Precinct every time you call 311 and give your complaint to them too.
4. Of course it goes without saying that IF YOU HEAR GUNFIRE, CALL 911. DO NOT OPEN YOUR WINDOWS AND LOOK OUTSIDE! CALL 911! This is not an episode of “Cops”.
5. Keep a log of everything that happens. Dates, times, incident descriptions.
6. Contact CB1 and find out when the next Public Safety committee meeting is. Bring your log to the meeting with copies for the committee.
7. Write letters to the mainstream media: that means the local newspapers. They all have neighborhood reporters of some type.
8. Contact every blog in the city with information about what is going on at Club Exit and what it is like to live near them.
9. Join the CB1 email list and follow what’s going on in the neighborhood and see if you can find venues for bringing your story to or if there are committees you can join to help remedy the problems or bring them to the attention of additional city agencies.
10. Organize your neighbors. Leaflet the neighborhood. Start a petition. Get people together so that everyone is doing all of the things on this list as often as possible.

There. That’s what I would do if I lived near Club Exit. But I don’t, so I don’t know what’s going on except what I read - which, given the problems I hear about the club, should be a lot more than I do.

It is not my job to fight the Club Exit fight. But at least I’m offering tangible suggestions about what should be done.

The boyfriend has a co-worker who is an OG Greenpoint resident, and she related to him today about a terrible crime that happened on Saturday night:

“Saturday night. A guy got in some sort of dispute with owner/worker/bouncer at a restaurant near Nassau/Manhattan. Was chased into the street and beaten up very badly, died yesterday as a result of the injuries. Was in one of the Polish papers that she had with her but I couldn’t find any English-language coverage.”

You can run the link from Nowy Dziennik through a translator here for a rough Polish to English translation.

She mentioned that the police were hopeful that the security cameras at the Dunkin Donuts on Nassau and Manhattan captured some of the altercation (which took place in front of Johnny’s Cafe on Manhattan Ave.)

The newspaper asks that any witnesses contact the editorial staff at (212) 594-2266 ext. 48.