Gothamist offers a little more info on the shooting spree over the weekend including that the woman had a gunshot wound to the head (not the ass) and that apparently this was all brought on by someone being ejected from the bar.
Update on the Production Lounge Shooting
Does anyone know what the latest news is in terms of the business? Are they getting shut down, at least temporarily? Is anyone even trying to figure out who fired the shots?
Funny how club shootings in Manhattan make the evening news, but here, a block can be riddled with 17 bullets, and while thankfully no one was killed, a woman actually suffers a head wound, and there seem to be no consequences and minimal information.
Thanks for passing on what you know. Just an observation. Sounds like not renewing a liquor license (sadly) will be far more effective than calling the police in this case.
Club shootings in Manhattan are reported only when someone gets killed or when a celebrity is involved. Same with shootings in general, which happen dozens of times a week in NYC. A block “riddled with bullets” seems like big news in Greenpoint because we don’t see it happen often, but to the NYC news media it’s not a big deal.
The consequences should be placed on the person who did the shooting, and there’s some cause for optimism there since there’s security tape of the earlier incident inside. At the least the police should have a good description, but again I don’t know the workload of the 94th Squad and what priority it’ll be given. Since we do have little violent crime in this area, it would seem that they’d pursue it.
The place will certainly not be shut down on the basis of this single incident (and it was open the next night), which in fact it seems that they dealt with as they should have. They took a troublemaker outside; there’s nothing else they could do. While bars do have some responsibility under SLA rules for what happens outside involving their patrons, they really have only to act responsibly in that regard, and it seems that they did.
If anyone does want to work to get them shut down, the liquor license is probably the best way, but it would take a lot more than this. Noise complaints, etc., to 311 are an approach to take, because they can be brought up at a renewal hearing. But again you’d have to establish a pretty strong pattern, and “not fitting in” in the neighborhood isn’t going to be a factor.
For a first baby step everyone should check out
http://www.trans.abc.state.ny.us/JSP/complaintreg/ComplaintRegistryPage.jsp
if you go to this NYS liquor authority website there is a box where you can check for disorderly conduct. It seems like a small move but as we all should expect a bar can’t stay open too much longer if they can’t sell liquor.
My husband spent some time talking to the cop who was stationed outside on Valentines Day, he said a good way to start trying to get the place shut down is to call 311 every time you hear a disturbance or see something fishy. This should create some running record of complaints to be used against them in the future. (ps it sort of pissed me off to see they had permanent free security that night courtesy of the NYPD, I suppose I might have felt a little safer, but do you not think it’s the owners responsibility to keep the area secure)
Personally I think it’s horrendous that the place was allowed to stay open on Saturday night, only a few hours after a woman was shot the red ropes were up and people were actually waiting on a line wrapping around the corner. Not to mention the other 20 bullets that went through the neighborhood destroying peoples property and the general mood of the neighborhood. Production Lounge is not exactly my crowd, and I’ve never set foot inside, but clearly they are drawing an undesirable clientele that do not live in the Greenpoint area.
One zoning question I don’t know if anyone can answer… this place use to be a garage no? Commercial space isn’t the same for everyplace, I wonder if it’s legal to even have a club/lounge/bar in this location.
J: A question: The shootings started really late [3:30AM]- Are you saying that they remained open after the incident- That would have made it after hours, no?
The shooting was on Friday night/Saturday early morning. They of course closed immediately then, but were open the next night.
bleibtreu is correct, and the lady was not shot in the derrière or head as everyone is speculating. There is really nothing a place can do but eject the person who was acting wrongly which they did, on the back street onto kent. There was not 17 shoots or the streets filled with bullets, there was actually 3 shots. And having lived in Manhatten and now Williamsburg, I don’t know why people think that violent crimes is not something that happens. It is not the bars fault, the individual was intoxicated, the cut him off and ejected him because he became a nuisance which is what they are suppose to do. Apart from that there is little them or their security can do without putting themselves at risk. And they are not responsible for the entire street only their immediate vicinity which i think is the area directly in front of the bar. I have lived in Williamsburg now for 3yrs, and even bought a condo and my neighbor got robbed at gunpoint, some guy got stabbed at Lost and Found, there is countless other criminal activity that goes on in the neighborhood that comes from when you mix drinks with stupid and our current economic times. So to blame everything on the owners is ridiculous, should be blaming the person who did the showing and hope the cops do their jobs properly.
I appreciate “anonymous” saying I’m correct, but then he went on to be not completely correct. There were certainly more than 3 shots; pictures available online make that very clear by showing how many cars were cars were hit along with at least three rounds having hit a single address on Franklin.
The person was not ejected for simply being intoxicated and being a “nuisance,” he was in an altercation (essentially starting when someone pushed someone else) with someone else in the bar. That was captured by the security cameras. Both were ejected.
If the victim “was not shot in the derrière or head as everyone is speculating,” where was she hit? And more importantly, why does it matter exactly where she was shot?
They can harass Sound Fix out of business but they leave this shithole alone? Unbelievable.
I guess that the difference is that the owner at Sound Fix didn’t want to be the bad guy fighting the neighbors, so he decided to just give in. This guy doesn’t seem to care about that.
Exactly bleibtreu. If the owner cared, this place would not have opened here in the first place. They would have been a little more selective with the location of a crap shack like this (the inner reaches of hell perhaps?).
I'm really only speculating here, and relying a bit on what may be faulty memory… but as I recall when this place was pretty new they used to have basically mainstream style rock bands on Friday nights. On their website's main page there's still a pic promoting "Rock Out Fridays with Hilary Novelle and Guests."
Hilary Novelle's myspace music page (she also has one for her acting persona) cites her influences as Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and Nina Simone. So not exactly the kind of show that has reportedly been there lately, but also probably not the kind of show that's going to bring in the typical Greenpoint crowd.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=95796961
My guess is that didn't draw well enough, and a promoter approached them (or they went looking) offering something else. Gotta pay the bills, and certainly the weeknights aren't doing that.