The dispute over a local restaurant continued at Westbury’s Thursday night, June 5, village board meeting.
Cena081, an Italian restaurant on Post Avenue, has been a central point of discussion at Westbury’s past few board meetings.
Residents who live nearby have come to the village hall to complain about what they called disruptively loud music coming from the restaurant during public hearings where Christopher Stasi, the restaurant’s owner, was seeking a cabaret permit to allow him to have live music at his establishment.
The board unanimously granted Stasi a 4-month probationary cabaret permit on May 15 with a list of conditions, including a stipulation that it could be revoked if more than two reasonable, substantiated and corroborated complaints were made.
Though other nearby residents and the board have found Cena081 to be in compliance with the permits’ conditions, one resident, who has been at the previous public hearings, came in Thursday with more complaints.
“If I’m sitting in my house and I’m cooking dinner, and I can hear music through my window. At 10:30, it turns into a disco,” the resident said. “All I want is peace.”
Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallaro said it was not inappropriate for him to hear some music at a reasonable level in the early evening and that no one else or the police had taken any recent issue with Cena081’s noise level.
“Every single one of your complaints has been unfounded. I went there. The village attorney has been there. Other trustees have been there,” Cavallaro said. “The videos that you gave us don’t show what you’re saying.”
The argument escalated quickly, with both men shouting at each other from across the boardroom and the resident threatening to have his lawyer talk to the board.
“You want to harass him, and I’m not going to accept that,” Cavallaro shouted. “We will wait to hear from your lawyer.”
After the disgruntled resident left, Cavallaro apologized for the heated confrontation, telling the other members of the public in the room that the dispute had been ongoing for months and that he believed the resident was trying to use the village to carry out his personal vendetta against the business owner.
Prior to the argument, the board heard complaints from a couple of residents who said they needed the sidewalks adjacent to their driveways fixed. The board said they would look into the issue and would carry out the work if deemed necessary, though residents were not wholly satisfied, as they said they had made complaints in the past.
The board also approved the Westbury Arts Summer Concert Series, a Thursday evening event which will run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. between July 17 and Aug. 21 at the Piazza Ernesto Strada, located at the corner of Post Avenue and Maple Avenue.
The mayor ended his report by encouraging residents to pay their village taxes.
“Maybe I’m jaded because I’m a mayor, but I think the village taxes you pay are the best dollars that you pay tax to any level of government,” Cavallaro said. “The services that are provided are provided efficiently and are important services that you see, like street improvements, garbage pickup, snow plowing and road repairs.”
Trustee Corte said that if any residents were confused by their tax bills, they should not hesitate to reach out to the village. If anyone gives the village a call with a question, he said they would be helped, either over the phone or in an in-person appointment.
