After Cuomo Rebuke, a St. Mark’s Bar Owner Tells His Side of Story

(Bloomberg) -- Editor’s Note: No city is more important to America’s economy than New York, and none has been hit harder by the coronavirus. “NYC Reopens” examines life in the capital of capitalism as the city takes its first halting steps toward a new normal.

Gerard McNamee isn’t going to tangle with the governor of New York — not about the coronavirus, not about the bars, and certainly not about crowds spilling out onto St. Mark’s Place, that faded vestige of the punk-rock past in the East Village of Manhattan.

But McNamee, co-owner of East Village Social, says Governor Andrew Cuomo needs to understand: New York City misses its bars and, maybe more, those bars miss their customers.

“It’s been a pressure cooker,” McNamee says of the throngs that have descended on the street’s bars, and the resulting ire from the governor, who says the barkeeps and their customers are being irresponsible about social distancing during the pandemic.

McNamee said he opened his bar on the first of May. He put out signs out with CDC guidelines. He even bought a bullhorn and began using it to remind patrons not to congregate outside his establishment.

But on Friday, his street was teeming with people. The sun was out, the city had taken its first tentative steps in reopening and lockdown-weary New Yorkers, had perhaps, had enough of being cooped up for so long. Few wore masks. Several other bars and restaurants on the block were open as well. Nearby, some establishments moved out tables and chairs onto sidewalks, flouting the state’s social-distancing guidelines.

It all started to look a lot like Bourbon Street, McNamee said, and quickly created a stir on social media.

We’re tracking everything you need to know as New York reopens after the Covid-19 shutdown. Read our explainer and sign up for alerts sent directly to your inbox.

“I got on the bull horn, but it was to no avail,” McNamee said. “It became bigger than my business, I have a neighbor on either side who both have large spaces. People were excited to be alive, it was a perfect storm.”

Similar scenes were reported or captured on social media across the city, including in Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper East Side. The blow back was swift.

“Don’t make me come down there … ” Cuomo tweeted on Saturday. Over the weekend, he also warned New Yorkers against triggering a second wave of the coronavirus, singling out bars and restaurants in Manhattan and the Hamptons as the worst offenders among 25,000 complaints filed to the state. If local officials didn’t crack down, he said, the state could be forced to roll back reopening plans.

McNamee said his bar didn’t receive a citation or summons, or a call from Cuomo. A few representatives from the Department of Health came spoke with him and others, McNamee said, and the situation on the block improved over the weekend. His business still isn’t making money right now and he’s not able to pay rent. But he’s hopeful the reopening will soon give him some relief.

“I think it’s going to be the roaring ’20s,” he said. “We’ll have a strong comeback.”

That, of course, depends on staying open.

“Now that the governor has put us all in check, hopefully it won’t happen again, and he won't have to backtrack,” said McNamee.

Alex Stupak, chef and owner of Empellon Al Pastor, at the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Avenue A, says the blame doesn’t lie with the neighborhood bars and restaurants, who are already struggling to survive. Any suspension of the city’s reopening could devastate business owners, who have been largely forced to close during the nearly three-month lockdown.

“What we don’t need is a governor who talks to you like your out-of-touch grandfather,” Stupak said. “Chefs are losing their restaurants, their careers. Is it our job to police the streets? No. Places are putting up signs and megaphones now, but it’s very unfair to task bars and restaurants with crowd control.”

“We’ve had people come up and say we’ll buy 30 margaritas,” he added. “The answer is no. As much as I want to take that money and I have those margaritas in bottles ready to go. But I can’t stop people from bar-hopping on St. Mark’s Place, that’s not my job.”

Some establishments have already decided the headaches aren’t worth it. Bua, on the same block as East Village Social, decided to close on Friday night at 8:30 p.m. It has no immediate plans to reopen. This was after a two-week run of takeout drinks and food.

“We quickly realized the amount of people who want to be out on our block and our street is not something anyone can control under the current circumstances,” said Mark Gibson, one of its owners.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.