Liquor Authority denies license for Red Horse in White Plains

By Bill heltzel / bheltzel@westfairinc.com

Restaurants near Grace Episcopal Church in downtown White Plains have been selling alcoholic beverages for many years, but the State Liquor Authority has disapproved a license for the recently opened Red Horse by David Burke.

Renaissance Westchester Restaurant, the operator of Red Horse, petitioned Westchester Supreme Court on July 20 to reverse that decision.

“If disallowed from selling alcoholic beverages to patrons,” the petition states, Red Horse “will effectively be out of business.”

The Red Horse is at 221 Main St. where BLT steakhouse operated for several years. It is next to Renaissance Park and about 175 feet from the front of Grace Episcopal Church at Main and Church streets.

The restaurant opened in March and was operating with a month-tomonth temporary permit while its application for a liquor license was pending.

The Red Horse “is renowned for its fine food and drink,” attorney Marc S. Oxman states in a court filing, and “patrons regularly enjoy cocktails before dinner and compliment their meal with a selection from the restaurant’s wide offering of fine wines.”

But since July 11 when the liquor authority disapproved the license and cancelled the temporary permit, he said, “business has fallen off precipitously.”

Mark Weissman, the owner of the business and co-owner of The Opus hotel in the same building, acknowledged the state’s 200-foot law in the license application.

The law restricts liquor licenses for establishments within 200 feet of a church or place of a worship, on the same street, that are used exclusively as a place of worship.

A liquor authority examiner found that the church is 175 feet from the restaurant. Citing information from the pastor, the liquor authority found that “all activities in the building are of a religious nature. Additionally, a soup kitchen operates Monday-Friday,” and there is a women’s shelter on the third floor.

Licensing officials also concluded that the application contained a false statement, by claiming that the church is 300 feet from the restaurant and not on the same side of the street. That statement alone, according to the report, is enough to deny the application.

Oxman took “extreme exception” to the state’s position that the license application was false.

The application identified the church as being within 200 feet of the Red Horse. But the church’s address, around the corner at 33 Church St., negates the 200-foot rule.

Additionally, the church is not used exclusively as a place of worship, he says, because the 19-bed Samaritan House Women’s Shelter provides comprehensive services to women suffering from substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence and HIV/AIDS.

The Red Horse location has been continuously licensed since 2008, according to Oxman, renewed nine times, and the facts and circumstances of previous applications are identical.

On July 21, Westchester Supreme Court Justice Hal B. Greenwald granted a temporary restraining order directing the liquor authority to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages through Aug. 8.

The Red Horse is asking the court to mandate approval of a liquor license.

New York State Liquor Authority spokesman Patrick Garrett said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.