Market Hotel management has moved all of their upcoming events to other venues following a police raid.
The NYPD charged the experimental music space with illegally "warehousing" alcohol last Friday after a surprise visit prior to a show, DNAinfo reports. Since it reopened in January, Market Hotel hasn't had a permanent liquor license, meaning that for each event they've had to apply for a special one-day beer and wine license. They were denied the one-day license for their Friday event on the afternoon of the show, management said in a statement on Facebook.
New York State liquor law says that, in this instance, they were not only barred from selling alcohol, but from keeping any alcohol on the premises to begin with. Market Hotel explains: "Our operations manager arrived at the building a little over an hour later on Friday afternoon in order to prepare for the night's event, which we intended to run dry with no bar. Police officers were on site in the building when he arrived. They charged us with 'warehousing' alcohol because the night's permit had been denied."
Management asserts that, because the NYPD arrived only a couple hours after their application was denied, they didn't have time to move the beer and wine out of the venue.
An in-depth article about the situation in Observer today speculated that it may "affect their candidacy for a permanent liquor license." In the mean time they've moved all their upcoming events to other spaces while waiting on news about the application for a permanent license.
This incident follows similar issues at the nearby venue Palisades, which was shut down in August, and at the much larger Brooklyn Mirage.