“Juice Bar” Bill OK’d

Aldermen voted to make it tougher have teens hang out at nightclubs — then explored where else they can find for kids to go.

Those matters arose Wednesday night at two Board of Aldermen committee meetings at City Hall.

The Finance Committee unanimously approved an ordinance amendment that, if passed by the whole board, would require New Haven nightclub owners to notify the police chief in advance of any events that minors are allowed to attend. The chief can then decide whether to require the owners to hire overtime-duty officers for the night. The amendment — colloquially known to board members as the ​“Juice Bar Bill” — was initially presented to the Board in March by Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts. (Click here to read the back story.)

“Juice bar” refers for an event hosted at least partly for minors by a bar or night club, since the minors in attendance are served juice, or at least some other non-alcoholic beverage. Such events are commonplace at Toad’s Place, which caters to Yale’s mostly under-21 student body. Those events (usually live music performances) are typically kept well under control, with police notified ahead of time about the masses expected on York Street. 

But police officers have been unpleasantly surprised in recent years by unannounced juice bar parties at several of the Crown Street nightclubs. After one such party, at Gotham Citi Cafe (pictured above) in 2008, several fights broke out among exiting partygoers, and a 17-year-old was shot in the leg. When Smuts spoke before the Finance Committee on Tuesday night, he asserted that giving police advance notice about underage parties could help to head off this kind of violence.

Committee members expressed few concerns before passing the amendment, which will now go before the full board. However, an hour earlier at a meeting of the board’s Youth Committee, Chairwoman Frances ​“Bitsie” Clark explained that the juice party issue is now ​“somewhat moot.” As Clark reported, that’s because New Haven’s nightclub owners, most of whom gather regularly at unofficial ​“Nightlife Committee” meetings, have largely decided to stop hosting underage events out of safety concerns. One owner said that the events ​“used to be lucrative, but are no longer worth the trouble,” according to Clark. One exception is Toad’s Place, which plans to keep the juice flowing for college students; those events are crucial to the club’s economic survival.

Still, Clark agreed with Smuts that the juice party ordinance is a good precaution to have for the future, when new owners might not be as wary of hosting minors. As Smuts put it, ​“We want to make sure that there’s a retained wisdom, that each new owner doesn’t have to learn this [lesson about juice parties] themselves.”

If New Haven high schoolers no longer get much nightclub floor space, where else in New Haven can they ​“just hang out” at night without being kicked out? Clark posed this question to the Youth Committee. Then she offered an answer herself: pretty much nowhere. That’s why more and more teenagers can be found roaming Milford’s Connecticut Post Mall, Clark said. She said she’d like to keep them in New Haven — and keep them safe.

With that goal on the table, Clark brought up the Goffe Street armory, recently abandoned by the National Guard and soon to be acquired by the city. Clark, who toured the site last month, said that the huge parade hall (in photo) would be perfect for a bowling alley or roller skating rink that could attract both kids and adults. 

Luring a business to take over even part of the armory is a long shot, Clark was told by Bruce Alexander, Yale’s vice-president for New Haven and state affairs. Although the building is otherwise in great shape, a new occupant would need to install air conditioning and make the site handicap-accessible. Even aside from that, Clark reported, bowling alleys and skating rinks have recently fared poorly in other parts of Connecticut.

The best way forward, Clark said, might be to attract a non-profit group to partner with the city in setting up recreation facilities and a community center, much like at Brooklyn’s Park Slope Armory, recently reopened by the City of New York and the local YMCA.

For the short term, Clark has pinned her hopes on Devonne Canady’s bid to open a boxing gym in an abandoned building on Orchard Street. Clark said the gym could be great place for kids to both hang out and work towards goals — like, say, becoming the next Chad Dawson, the world’s current light heavyweight champion, who grew up training at Ring One Boxing on Congress Avenue.

Clark warned that Canady’s boxing gym, like other recent teen-oriented business proposals, is facing resistance from neighbors and storeowners who don’t want crowds of kids on their turf. ​“The majority of these kids aren’t causing trouble,” Clark insisted. ​“But is there anything that we can do as aldermen to help people change their minds about these businesses [that would give teens a place to go]?”

Clark couldn’t answer that question herself, and no one else at the committee table ventured a response.