A Manhattan restaurant has been put on probation for three months after a community board found its boozy brunches were fueling bad behavior among patrons. Checkey Beckford reports.
A Manhattan restaurant has been put on probation for three months after a community board found its boozy brunches were fueling bad behavior among patrons.
Community Board 5 put the Flatiron restaurant Pranna on notice after neighbors began posting videos of diners leaving the brunches in apparently highly intoxicated states.
Residents said they've repeatedly complained about the restaurant and its customers in the past.
"People at Pranna are served to the point of extreme intoxication," said one neighbor at the community board meeting Wednesday.
"People are drunk, fighting, throwing up. Girls are drunk, crying in the middle of the street without shoes," said another woman.
In fact, one recent YouTube video shows a woman leaving the restaurant and taking off her shoes before vomiting on the sidewalk as a friend pulls back her hair. Another woman, apparently too drunk to stand up, is seen lying on the sidewalk.
"It is an egregious violation of their liquor license," said another person at the meeting. "They're absolutely running a nightclub. How is it that their liquor license isn't canceled?"
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Ultimately, Community Board 5's public safety committee did not recommend that Pranna's license be rejected outright. Instead, the board put the restaurant on probation for three months, forbidding the bottomless brunches and loud music.
Owner Rajiv Sharma agreed to the changes, but admitted he was worried about business.
"We are going to be affected. We will not be one of the top brunch spots of New York City, and the general public is going to be upset. They loved Pranna," he said.
