I was alerted to this by The Diamond‘s newsletter and I thought it was worth passing on. While I can sympathize with people living in the immediate vicinity of a bar with a backyard, the truth is most of these spots are pretty low key. And in the case of the Diamond, the owner is absolutely correct in the fact that it’s mostly industrial near them. No one to wake up.
I’m of the opinion that bars should be able to police themselves and settle any issues with their neighbors on a case by case basis. While there are always going to be exceptions to the rule, I think most local bars aren’t having an issue with their yards. And how much will it suck to not have that al fresco drinking experience in the prime time hours? Plus, as a smoker, the ability to drink my beer and smoke my cigarette at the same time again is one thing I DO NOT want to give up. Again.
State Senator Joan Millman has introduced legislation to curb backyard and roof usage at bars and restaurants. This legislation prematurely ends your evening by enforcing mandatory close times of 10pm Sun-Thurs and 11pm Fri-Sat. It also hurts small businesses by requiring us to have waitstaff in the yard at all times.
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We disagree with the legislation as we believe that businesses should be able to police themselves and settle individual grievances with neighbors. We set our own close time out back based on the density of neighbors in our vicinity. Since much of the space behind the Diamond is non-residential warehouse, a 10pm close time is not appropriate. Enforcing this random rule on everyone is a lazy approach and does not consider the variety of unique situations.
As always, check out our webpage. We are in the midst of an overhaul and the look will be continuing to change over the coming weeks. Notice a couple new items: pictures of the bar and some sweet artwork from a good friend of ours. We have finally updated the beer list and you can even make comments on it!
The Diamond
43 Franklin Street
btwn Quay & Calyer