“I didn’t have nothing to cease and desist,” protested Larry Livingston, as a state prosecutor grilled him on why he allegedly refused to comply with a city order to shut down the Taurus Caf√©.
Livingston, owner of the Taurus Caf√©, took the stand in New Haven’s State Superior Court Tuesday, the second day of his criminal trial before Judge William Holden. Livingston is charged with willfully violating city zoning regulations, an offense that bears a $250 fine and a sentence of up to 10 days in jail. (Click here for a back story.)
Livingston, who has pleaded not guilty to the offense, spent two hours answering rapid-fire questions over why he refused to appeal or address the city’s Aug. 3, 2007, order to cease and desist operating as “an after-hours club or community center.” He has since closed the bar down, he said.
One of the lines of argument Livingston has used in his defense is that he was not made aware that the zoning violation could land him in jail. He testified that he didn’t read the cease-and-desist order immediately upon receiving it at 2:20 a.m.
Attorney Judith R. Dicine, the state’s prosecutor, asked him why he didn’t immediately read it.
“Do you read the English language?” asked the prosecutor, standing at the podium in tall heels.
“Yes, I am familiar with most of the words,” Livingston replied.
So why didn’t he see what the order was about?
“I wear glasses,” he explained. “I didn’t have my glasses that day.”
Dicine failed to pin the bar-owner down on exactly when he got around to reading the notice. He said he didn’t follow up on the order because he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“I didn’t have nothing to cease and desist,” he argued. He had a valid city permit at the time for a 85-seat restaurant. He contends that he was just running a restaurant, and that he had ceased serving alcohol when he lost his liquor license in June 2007.
When he did get around to reading the order, did he understand that the city wanted him to close the “after-hours club and/or community center?” Dicine asked.
“It’s true that they city wants me closed,” retorted Livingston, “permanent.”
In attempting to prove his guilt, the state tried to make the case that Livingston was operating not just as a restaurant, but but running a club “after-hours” — a term that is not defined by city zoning code.
Tuesday, Dicine tried to clear up that ambiguity. She cited an example of case law, as well as testimony from Lt. Rebecca Sweeney, to demonstrate that the “after-hours” means after 2 a.m.
To show that the establishment was more than just a restaurant, Dicine presented details about what was seen in the club the two times city officials raided it, on Aug. 2 – 3 and Aug. 31-Sept. 1.
In a closing argument, Dicine appealed to the jury to consult their common sense as to whether the bar was an ordinary restaurant.
“There was music being played continuously!” she declared. “There was a dance floor! There was eating!” The “club” charged cover, she contended, citing Livingston’s testimony. Dicine didn’t prove that anyone was dancing on the floor, or that there was a DJ specifically assigned to play music.
She asked Livingston if he’d ever seen anyone dancing on Taurus’s floor-to-ceiling stripper pole during the month of August 2007. No, he replied — he usually stands at the door, and the club is dark inside, obscuring his view of the pole.
In his testimony, Livingston said that he did not consult an attorney on the cease-and-desist order until he was in handcuffs. The prosecutor ended by charging that Livingston’s refusal to comply with zoning was clearly “willful.”
“If he wanted to read the order, he would’ve put his glasses on! He didn’t want to read the order,” she charged. She also asked the jury to consider why Livingston wasn’t wearing his glasses in the courtroom.
The defendant smiled, slipped out some spectacles from a breast pocket, and put them on. Then he sat by as his attorney, Frank Cannatelli, made a final plea to jurors.
Cannatelli, a stout man wearing a striped tie and a large gold ring, asked the jury to consider that his client’s record. At the time of his arrest, Livingston had run a bar for 23 years in a “bad part of town” without racking up a single criminal charge. He argued that the only reason city officials found people in the bar past 2 a.m. was because they were being held there as part of the raid.
This line of argument sent Dicine to her feet several times. She objected to bringing new facts into the case. And she objected to Cannatelli’s argument that getting slapped with the cease and desist was a constitutional violation.
Both sides rested their case for the day, with Judge Holden resolving to charge jurors Wednesday at 10 a.m.
Asked if he had any final words, Cannatelli said yes: He filed a motion for mistrial based on being interrupted so many times by the state. Holden denied the motion.
As Livingston walked out the door into the crisp winter air, he was met with two friends, former Taurus regulars.
Yuwell Mitchell (at right in photo) said he frequented the neighborhood drinking hole for 10 – 15 years before moving out of the neighborhood.
“It was like Cheers,” he said, “where everybody knows your name.”
The club at 520 Winchester Ave. has been a saloon since 1899. Mitchell bemoaned the loss of Newhallville’s last bar.
“He was the last one to survive,” said Mitchell, “but they got to him.”