This week Dave Kaplan of Death & Co. told the Observer that he was suing the State Liquor Authority to keep his bar open. He’s not the only one: Lower East Side dance den 205 is also pleading its case to the Supreme Court after the Authority stripped it of a license a month ago (the club is open and pouring while the case is being decided). Owner Guy Jacobson, who also operates Café Deville and Belmont Lounge, tells us he believes the SLA unfairly revoked his license after he didn’t appear at a hearing to argue drug-related charges leveled at the bar in 2006.
Jacobson argues that he wasn’t given due notice of the hearing and believes that charges would have been thrown out had he appeared — just as similar charges in a previous hearing were dismissed when the investigating officers proved unreliable, he says. “I fully, 100 percent, expect to have my license back when this is resolved,” says Jacobson. Sure, he’ll have to go to the SLA all over again in order to renew the license, but given the fact that he has had only a minor Health Department violation in the past year, he doesn’t think the Authority will dare thwart him after the case is resolved in court. One thing’s for sure: 205 will live to see summer.
