gblowfish
07-09-2011, 10:08 AM
New Brunswick mayor accused of hindering man from opening sports bar named Buck Foston's
Published: Friday, July 01, 2011, 8:30 AM
By Sue Epstein/The Star-Ledger
NEW BRUNSWICK — Larry Blatterfein is a pinstripes kinda guy.
Not exactly an eloquent one, but then nobody would ever accuse him of being anything less than a die-hard New York Yankees fan.
He wears his Yankee pride on his sleeve, and wants to proclaim his true feelings about the hated Boston Red Sox at the busy crossroads of Routes 1 and 18 in New Brunswick for all the world to see.
There, he proposes a restaurant crowned with the kind of epithet heard only too often in the Bronx.
He wants to call it Buck Foston’s Road House.
Not exactly high-end humor, maybe, despite his plan for a high-end sports bar at the site of the old Bennigans, but its meaning is likely all too clear to those who repeatedly chant it the way it was meant to be said in Yankee Stadium.
Trouble is, not everyone in New Brunswick cheers for the Yankees. One, in fact — the mayor — is apparently a Red Sox fan. And he is reportedly not amused.
Leading to this country’s other great national pastime.
A lawsuit.
Blatterfein has filed suit in federal court in Newark against Mayor James Cahill, charging that his liquor license for the new bar is being held up because the mayor thinks Buck Foston’s Road House is "vulgar and inappropriate for a business in New Brunswick."
In his court papers, Blatterfein said the name was simply a "play on words" that is "evocative of a century-old sports rivalry between the New York and Boston sports teams," and one, he hopes, that would be well known to local sports fans and draw customers to his business.
He noted that the city allowed the opening of another restaurant with a name that might also raise eyebrows in Sunday school — Cluck U Chicken — an argument he claimed the mayor accepted because "chickens cluck," according to the lawsuit.
"I have not hidden the name of the bar from anyone or my intentions to use it," Blatterfein said Thursday. "I’ve included it on every form, every application that has required it. Now, as my investors and I are finally near the end of the process, the mayor suddenly seeks to be the arbiter of free speech."
Blatterfein’s attorney, Mark W. Smith of New York City, said his client believes Cahill controls the police and won’t let the department issue its approval — the final one needed.
A spokesman for the mayor, William Bray, said Cahill may be opposed to the name, but that is not what has been holding up Blatterfein’s application. According to the city, Blatterfein has not yet submitted a certificate from the state Division of Taxation that there are no tax liens on the license.
"We have not received a tax clearance certificate and, under state law, we can’t do anything without it," Bray said. He also said the police have not yet given approval of Blatterfein’s application.
"We don’t understand why he’s rushed off and filed this lawsuit," Bray said. "He agreed to get the certificate, applied for it, and hasn’t submitted it yet."
If it is simply a question of freedom of speech, the First Amendment would cover the naming of bars and restaurants, said Frank Askin, director of the Constitutional Litigation Center at Rutgers Law School in Newark. But, he said, Blatterfein would have to prove his claim that Cahill is holding up the license because he simply dislikes the name.
The new sports bar would open on the site of what was Bennigan’s Restaurant at the intersection of Routes 1 and 18 and employ 75 people. The site has been vacant for three years. Blatterfein agreed to buy it in 2009, but the sale is contingent on his receiving the liquor license.
Meanwhile, some Boston fans are amused by the battle.
"I think it’s hilarious," said Sean O’Dea, a lifelong Red Sox fan. "It’s fitting. This is Yankees territory."
Published: Friday, July 01, 2011, 8:30 AM
By Sue Epstein/The Star-Ledger
NEW BRUNSWICK — Larry Blatterfein is a pinstripes kinda guy.
Not exactly an eloquent one, but then nobody would ever accuse him of being anything less than a die-hard New York Yankees fan.
He wears his Yankee pride on his sleeve, and wants to proclaim his true feelings about the hated Boston Red Sox at the busy crossroads of Routes 1 and 18 in New Brunswick for all the world to see.
There, he proposes a restaurant crowned with the kind of epithet heard only too often in the Bronx.
He wants to call it Buck Foston’s Road House.
Not exactly high-end humor, maybe, despite his plan for a high-end sports bar at the site of the old Bennigans, but its meaning is likely all too clear to those who repeatedly chant it the way it was meant to be said in Yankee Stadium.
Trouble is, not everyone in New Brunswick cheers for the Yankees. One, in fact — the mayor — is apparently a Red Sox fan. And he is reportedly not amused.
Leading to this country’s other great national pastime.
A lawsuit.
Blatterfein has filed suit in federal court in Newark against Mayor James Cahill, charging that his liquor license for the new bar is being held up because the mayor thinks Buck Foston’s Road House is "vulgar and inappropriate for a business in New Brunswick."
In his court papers, Blatterfein said the name was simply a "play on words" that is "evocative of a century-old sports rivalry between the New York and Boston sports teams," and one, he hopes, that would be well known to local sports fans and draw customers to his business.
He noted that the city allowed the opening of another restaurant with a name that might also raise eyebrows in Sunday school — Cluck U Chicken — an argument he claimed the mayor accepted because "chickens cluck," according to the lawsuit.
"I have not hidden the name of the bar from anyone or my intentions to use it," Blatterfein said Thursday. "I’ve included it on every form, every application that has required it. Now, as my investors and I are finally near the end of the process, the mayor suddenly seeks to be the arbiter of free speech."
Blatterfein’s attorney, Mark W. Smith of New York City, said his client believes Cahill controls the police and won’t let the department issue its approval — the final one needed.
A spokesman for the mayor, William Bray, said Cahill may be opposed to the name, but that is not what has been holding up Blatterfein’s application. According to the city, Blatterfein has not yet submitted a certificate from the state Division of Taxation that there are no tax liens on the license.
"We have not received a tax clearance certificate and, under state law, we can’t do anything without it," Bray said. He also said the police have not yet given approval of Blatterfein’s application.
"We don’t understand why he’s rushed off and filed this lawsuit," Bray said. "He agreed to get the certificate, applied for it, and hasn’t submitted it yet."
If it is simply a question of freedom of speech, the First Amendment would cover the naming of bars and restaurants, said Frank Askin, director of the Constitutional Litigation Center at Rutgers Law School in Newark. But, he said, Blatterfein would have to prove his claim that Cahill is holding up the license because he simply dislikes the name.
The new sports bar would open on the site of what was Bennigan’s Restaurant at the intersection of Routes 1 and 18 and employ 75 people. The site has been vacant for three years. Blatterfein agreed to buy it in 2009, but the sale is contingent on his receiving the liquor license.
Meanwhile, some Boston fans are amused by the battle.
"I think it’s hilarious," said Sean O’Dea, a lifelong Red Sox fan. "It’s fitting. This is Yankees territory."