After a long battle, a local restaurant has received permission to play live music.
The Westbury Board of Trustees granted Cena081, an Italian restaurant on Post Avenue, a cabaret permit Thursday night. The decision comes after months of debate and multiple contentious board meetings during which the restaurant’s owner, Christopher Stasi, and nearby residents clashed over noise violations and music volume.
Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallero emphasized that the permit is provided to Cena081 on a probationary basis. This means that it has a long list of conditions and is only good for four months before the owner must reapply for another permit or extension.
“This gives us the ability to assess how it worked out over the summer and then figure out if it was the right thing for that particular location,” Cavallero said. He said that the board had thoroughly thought through the decision and had conducted a site visit and used data from an acoustic engineer report prepared by Stasi.
Past board meetings have involved Stassi and residents who live next door and across the street from Cena081 debating the volume of music played at the restaurant. About half a dozen residents have told the board that the music’s volume disturbs their sleep, with some saying it shakes their house or sounds like a loud club into the late hours of the night.
The permit’s conditions try to alleviate the issues experienced by residents. Some include the removal of speakers from the restaurant’s roof, live music only being played inside and in the south courtyard until 10 p.m. at the latest, the wooden door between the courtyard and inside remaining closed except for exit and entry and the speakers being set at 60% volume typically and at 90% for special events. Other physical changes to reduce noise were also included in the conditions list, including the usage of noise-absorbent materials, new walls to serve as sound barriers and a limit of one outdoor bass speaker.
Multiples of these changes were proposed by Stasi himself in an effort to rectify the problems, which he presented to the board in updated site plans. Other conditions, like ones related to trash removal and delivery timing, are not directly related to the noise complaints but respond to other issues residents have expressed with the restaurant.
Cavallero said one notable condition in the permit is that if Cena081 receives more than two reasonable, verifiable, corroborated complaints, the board can request Stassi to appear at a public hearing where residents can air their grievances, and a decision on whether to alter the permit can be made. He said this was made in response to complaints from residents who questioned how many violations the restaurant would need to receive for action to be taken.
“If we have complaints that are verifiable complaints, we’re not going to wait four months to take action,” Cavallero said. “We’ll have him in before then and again hear both from the residents and him and see if any additional action might be warranted. This gives us a sort of lever to take action.”
Cavallero emphasized that he and the board were doing their best to balance the needs of both the nearby residents and Stassi’s right to run a business.
“These are always delicate and difficult situations. We try to be as sensitive as we can and responsive as we can for the residents, but we also have to recognize that the business owner has property rights as well,” Cavellero said. “But they have to abide by the law like anybody else. We’ve tried to cast a middle ground that hopefully is going to satisfy everybody, but we’ve also built in what we think are mechanisms to address any issues that arise.”
“It’s a balancing act. We’ve tried to do our best to observe each party’s legitimate concerns and rights,” he added. “We will be nimble in terms of acting on anything that we think needs to be acted on.”
Stasi will have to reappear in front of the board in another public hearing to renew Cena081’s cabaret permit before it expires on Sept. 15. Residents will be given the opportunity to express their opinion on whether or not Cena081 has followed the permit’s conditions and how they feel about the restaurant receiving a permit extension at that hearing.
