Minutes after learning he’s not going to jail, one of the city’s most targeted bar-owners vowed to get back in the business of serving alcohol.
A jury Wednesday afternoon acquitted Larry Livingston (pictured), the owner of Newhallville’s Taurus Caf√©, of one count of willful violation of the city zoning code. The jury’s verdict capped a three-day trial before Judge William Holden in New Haven’s State Superior Court.
After over four hours of deliberation, the six jurors emerged with a verdict around 4:30 p.m. In saying the words “not guilty,” they released Livingston of a charge he was slapped with on Sept. 1, 2007, when city officials raided his Winchester Avenue club. The city accused the bar owner of disobeying a cease-and-desist order to stop running an “after-hours club and/or community center.”
A triumphant Livingston hugged his attorney upon hearing the news. He said the decision proved what he had contended all along: That after losing his liquor license in June 2007 amid a City Hall crackdown on nuisance bars, he continued to operate a legal restaurant that did not violate city zoning code. Livingston said he closed the restaurant after his arrest.
With the criminal charges lifted, Livingston wants to get back in business.
“I’m gonna fight and try to get my liquor license back,” he said.
A Murky Definition
His acquittal came after everyone in the court struggled to find a clear definition for the term “after-hours club.”
The term is not defined by city zoning code. Scrounging for a definition, state prosecutor Judith R. Dicine resorted to asking a police officer what she thought it meant.
On at least two occasions, the judge showed his confusion over the meaning. At the end of the first day, Judge Holden asked the state just how he was supposed to instruct the jurors as to what the definition was.
The state did not present a written definition until the second day of the trial, when Dicine produced a 1993 court case concerning the downtown Alchemy bar in which a loose definition of an after-hours club was offered.
Tuesday morning, while the jury was out of the room, the judge and the two attorneys spent close to an hour arguing about whether the state had presented a usable definition of an after-hours club. Defense attorney Frank Cannatelli hammered home the point.
All the confusion appears to have left the jury feeling in the dark, too: After half an hour of deliberations, members emerged to ask the judge a question. Their question: How to define “after-hours club and/or community center,” and what the state’s burden of proof is in showing one was operating.
Cannatelli gave several other defenses during the trial: That the caf√© was a legal restaurant; that the cease-and-desist order was not valid because of a discrepancy in the date of issuance; that no one told Livingston the zoning violation might land him in jail; that Livingston shouldn’t have been responsible for the cease-and-desist order because he had supposedly sub-leased the bar to someone else two days before the city raided it.
The five women and one man in the jury gave no statement as to their reason behind their verdict.
Livingston concluded they had been swayed by his testimony. “I told ‘em just as it is,” he said. “I didn’t do anything illegal. I was just trying to make ends meet selling food.”
The Taurus owner said he’s not interested in running a restaurant there, but he does want to reopen the bar: He has appealed the state liquor commission’s decision not to renew his license; and he’s applying for a new one though the city.
Dicine (pictured), the state prosecutor, warned that officials would be watching him. “The state considers the violation of safety codes” a “serious matter, particularly in cases where the community is affected in a detrimental way,” she said.
“We hope that any further operation of the Taurus Caf√© is duly licensed,” she said, “or the state will continue to see its role in the same fashion.”