Two southeast Baltimore neighborhoods and a coalition of communities along York Road have won big victories at the Baltimore Liquor Board, including a two-month suspension for the Latin Palace, a Fells Point fixture at 509-13 South Broadway.

There were cheers and high-fives on one side of the hearing room for the Latin Palace decision and two other cases that drew a large number of spectators – a request to transfer a license to 4419-B York Road (denied) and a transfer request for 35 N. Potomac Street in Patterson Park (also denied).

On the other side of the room, there were licensees and their counsel whose defenses in several cases included none-too-veiled insinuations of racial bias by their critics.

“I’m just wondering what community she’s talking about. . . I just wanted to see why my community is not counted in all this,” said Jose Ribadeneira, whose Latin Palace club was ultimately found guilty of four violations, including keeping the exit doors locked during operation and violating the terms of the license by allowing dancing and live entertainment and holding a boxing match after being warned by a liquor inspector not to.

Ribadeneira, who came into the Thursday hearing more than a half-hour late and without an attorney present, said he had mistakenly understood from his lawyer that the case had been postponed. He said he could have mustered his own Hispanic supporters, if prepared, and brought “5,000 people out in the street.”

But Commissioner Dana Moore, beginning with a gentle preamble (“I like your place”) and noting that she met her husband there in 2000, concluded by rebuking him sharply.

“It’s not about who are your friends or who is your community,” Moore said. “It’s about the law.”

Children Must Run the Gauntlet

Indeed, liquor laws – and the bars and liquor store owners who allegedly violate them to the detriment of residents – were the focus of community leaders’ arguments in these and other cases over the course of nearly six hours of hearings.

“We’ve got six liquor licenses within eight blocks. There is no need for another one,” said Karen DeCamp, who came with more than two dozen residents to oppose the liquor store that Nimesh Shah and Jigna Patel wanted to open at 4419-B York Road.

“Children have to run the gauntlet” of these establishments to reach their schools, said DeCamp, who chairs the liquor committee of the York Road Partnership, a coalition of neighborhood associations.

Why, asked City Councilman Bill Henry, should the community even have to raise these arguments, since the proposed transfer would violate the city’s prohibition against licensing a bar or liquor store closer than 300 feet to a school. (Guilford Elementary School is 279 feet away, according to the Liquor Board’s laser measurements.)

Chairman Thomas Ward directed them to go forward with their other points, noting that the measurements might be challenged on appeal. (“From what point to what point are they measuring?” the licensee’s attorney Melvin J. Kodenski pressed).

Among those arguments was that the proposed liquor store does not fit with two other provisions of the law, that there be “a need and desire” for the establishment, and that it offer “uniqueness of service.”

Curt Schwartz, of Richnor Springs, said the area (along with much of the city) is over-saturated with establishments selling liquor and doesn’t need another: “In Baltimore, you can’t throw a dead cat without hitting a bar.”

Police: Bar Would Attract Crime

Opponents of the El Palacio Latino request – making their case a second time, for the benefit of two new members of the board – said that another bar would attract crime and reverse hard-won progress by community leaders to stabilize the area.

Robbyn Lewis, of 6 N. Potomac Street, said homeownership on the street has increased in recent years and that new residents with night-shift schedules, including emergency room staff and physicians, need security.

The proposed site of the transfer, the former Potomac Tavern at the corner of Fairmount and Potomac streets, is near other corners known to the police as drug-dealing hotspots, said Lt. William Colburn, of the police department’s Southeast District.

An additional bar there, Colburn said, “would give them another location where I fear the same type of criminal element would migrate.”

Lewis recalled the Potomac Tavern (it shut down in 2007) as a source of “noise, chaos, crime and trash.”

She said patrons “would carry out alcohol and consume it on the streets and stoops of peoples’ homes” and that “there were often fights.”

Not all bars and taverns have a negative effect on public health, Lewis, a public health consultant, observed, describing establishments she frequents in the area such as Roman’s as “good neighbors.”

Kodenski challenged her, asking how she knew the new licensees would cause problems. “I’m not impressed by what I’ve heard here today,” she replied.

(H. David Leibensperger, president of the Patterson Park Neighborhood Association, had run through the case he made at a previous four-hour hearing, including citing building code violations, rats and the licensee’s son’s history of drug and weapons convictions.)

Race Issue Raised

Kodenski seized on Lewis’ contention that bars cause public health problems, adding pointedly “except for the ones you frequent.”

“The other groups, they don’t care to have,” Kodenski said, pointing to more than a dozen Hispanic supporters standing with the licensees.

Leibensperger found himself having to defend the diversity of PPNA and the neighborhood, and describe the group’s Spanish language interpreters at meetings and translation services provided for minutes and their “large Latino outreach and recruitment” initiatives.

Similarly challenged were the opponents pressing the board to punish the Latin Palace, on South Broadway, for violations. Fells Point Community Organization president Joanne Masopust had to describe the opponents’ support from Hispanic leaders. The licensee came back at her.

At the mention of the fact that Fells Prospect Community Association president Victor Corbin had been involved, Ribadeneira sniffed that “he doesn’t even speak the language!”

Corbin found himself having to explain his background  (“My mother was from Central America, my father is Venezuelan”) and acknowledge that “my Spanish is not the best.”

Club Sound “Rattled the Dishes”

Led by Masopust and Community Law Center attorney Susan Hughes, opponents focused on what they said was the licensee’s history of continuing to have live entertainment and dancing even though a 1998 document negotiated with the communities and approved by the Board of Municipal Zoning Appeals clearly forbid it.

“He has shown disrespect to this board, its inspectors and the community,” Masopust said, citing the establishment’s other past and pending violations.

Liquor inspector Karen Brooks reviewed the specific recent charges, including the dancing in November and December last year, and the boxing match held there in February. (They had a packed house, full-sized ring and two referees, Brooks said.)

Mondell Powell, among the club’s closest neighbors for the past eight years, testified that the sound coming from the club on weekends has “rattled the dishes” and made him think at first that there was car playing music with booming bass parked outside.

When he complained, Powell said, Ribadeneira basically told him that he “relies on these events to pay our bills” and continued to hold them.

Pressed by Ward, Ribadeneira at first said he wasn’t aware of the license restrictions and then said, “I was made aware of that a couple of years ago.” (Masopust noted his August 23, 2013 appeal to the Liquor Board to have the restrictions lifted.)

Name-dropping, Assurances from “Zoning”

By the end, Ward (who had advocated a four-month suspension and was outvoted) was in a mood to blast the licensee.

“Somewhere along the line,” he said, ” you’ve gotten the idea you can do what you want to do.”

Among the licensee’s comments were some that suggested where that idea may have come from. He acknowledged that he had thought for years he had permission to have dancing in the club and that the permission for this came “from Zoning.”

He also said that the Liquor Board itself was aware of the dancing and other events taking place at the club. “Every time the Liquor Board person came to the establishment – and they came many times – if I would have been told,” he said, trailing off and looking at Ward, named chairman in June.

Ribadeneira also repeatedly referenced Gov. Martin O’Malley. “Our governor came in when he was a city councilman and performed. I thought it was okay to have music.” He mentioned that the Latin Palace has a membership program, adding, “I have many members, including the governor.”

Asked if the Liquor Board bears some responsibility for Ribadeneira flouting the law, Masopust said, “Yes, they do.”

“He had a valid point,” she said. “Inspectors were there in the past and knew about the restrictions, but nothing happened,” she said. “Why?”