‘Booze hounded’ by wild brunches
Suing to end ‘endless drinks’
This lawyer is either a killjoy or a hero, depending on which side of the bottomless brunch debate you’re on.
Manhattan attorney Robert Halpern is suing the State Liquor Authority over a loophole in the 1999 law that allows the boozy brunches, saying he’s surrounded by 454 restaurants slinging unlimited drinks in the area.
“Bottomless brunches lead to more drinking in the neighborhood, which leads to more noise, more crowds and more uncivil behavior,” the East Village resident gripes in court papers.
“I hear the noise. I hear the shouting. I hear people outside my window — more people treating every evening as a celebration,” he fumed to The Post on Wednesday, hours after filing the suit.
Halpern, 62, says the streets around his longtime First Avenue and St. Marks Place home have changed for the worst over the past 30 years.
“Anybody who has lived in this neighborhood for a while knows that it’s gotten out of whack. There’s no balance anymore in terms of people living here and people just deciding to have fun here,” he said.
The SLA has claimed that bottomless brunches — where customers pay a set amount for end- less mimosas and Bloody Marys — are exempt from a rule prohibiting unlim-unlimited drinks becausese the “serservice of alcohol is incidental to the event.”
Halpern insists that’s nonsense.
“Alcoholic beverages are not ‘incidental’ to the bottomless brunches, they are intrinsic to them,” he said.
The exception to the law was meant for truly special events such as weddings, banquets and New Year’s Eve packages, according to his Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
“I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about brunch,” he added. “The [SLA] is supsupposed to promote temperance, not ‘massive consumption,’ ” he said, calling bottomless brunches “the drinker’s equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Halpern’s suit accuses the SLA of ignoring his complaints about four establishments including Pardon My French on Avenue B, which offers one entree and limitless drinks for $29.95.
SLA spokesman William Crowley said, “Instances of over-serving by our licensees are aggressively investigated and prosecuted.”