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Q&A
Discussion on community complaints and communication with Le Dive
0:51:56
ยท
3 min
Council Member Marte raises concerns about numerous complaints his office has received regarding Le Dive. The restaurant's representatives, including attorney Max Bookman and CEO Jon Neidich, respond to these concerns and discuss their communication practices.
- Marte mentions receiving dozens of complaints through petitions, emails, and from local nonprofits and businesses
- Le Dive representatives claim they have not received direct complaints from the community, except for one particular resident
- Jon Neidich explains their usual process for handling community concerns and emphasizes their willingness to engage in dialogue
- Bookman suggests setting up a meeting facilitated by the council member's office to address any ongoing issues
Christopher Marte
0:51:56
You know, I don't know how you keep records of complaints or how you address them.
0:52:02
My office alone have received dozens of complaints, not only through petitions, but direct emails to our our office from local nonprofits, from from other businesses and residents in the area.
0:52:16
And so for for me, it's also a surprise to that you haven't received any complaints.
0:52:21
Have you spoken to your staff or managers at the location to see if they've gotten residents that have walked in to to file some of these complaints directly?
Max Bookman
0:52:30
So council member, I'm gonna say a word on that, but then I am gonna turn it over to my clients, because they're under oath as well, and I want you to hear it under oath directly from them on this point.
0:52:40
In the in the week that I've been involved, since the call up investigating this, they have been emphatic with me that they have not received complaints from individuals in the community concerning the operation of their outdoor space.
0:52:55
There was, one particular resident.
0:52:58
The only exception to that is one particular resident who they could speak to more directly about, but there has not been, beyond that, complaints that we're aware of, nor are we aware of communications from any elected officials or the community board directly to us concerning our operation.
0:53:13
But with that said, let me turn it over to my clients to to to add to it.
Jon Neidich
0:53:16
Thanks, Max.
0:53:18
Yeah.
0:53:18
As Max said, we've been we've been doing this for twelve years and we've had a number of instances with places that we've run when there have been neighbors who have had complaints around operation.
0:53:29
There was an instance around around sidewalk operations during the pandemic at one of our venues in the West Village.
0:53:35
And the person came to us, left their number.
0:53:41
We our our email was given.
0:53:42
They reached out, and we started a conversation in which we compromised, complied, took off.
0:53:47
I mean, it was the pandemic, so it was a different situation.
0:53:49
But we basically took down our half of our sidewalk so that we could comply with creating passageway for for that.
0:53:57
In in this instance, there there have not been any no one has gone and and created an outreach that that facilitates a conversation where someone sends an email to us or gives a phone number or calls us directly, which is normally how we're we're done.
0:54:19
Our managers are also instructed to to give out numbers or our contact information on our community board stipulations that were from the very beginning that we were on.
0:54:29
Our numbers are on them.
0:54:30
So there are there are avenues that we I know the community board knows how to get in touch with us because we've been in touch with the community board over We were in touch with the black association when we first got our license who's who who hasn't been involved in in this process.
0:54:47
So sorry, that was a long answer to say that there just hasn't been any formal outreach which which we have either ignored or pushed to the side or anything like that.
Max Bookman
0:54:56
And if I could just add one more point to that council member, which is, you know, again, I I've been involved with a lot of community board applications, liquor licenses.
0:55:03
It's it's a common feature to or or bug of the system, I suppose, where you appear at whether it's a hearing like this or at community board and there's sort of a disagreement about who reached out to who and when and was it sufficient.
0:55:16
And sometimes different parties could just have different views of the same facts.
0:55:19
I mean, I think the important point, the point that I just really wanna emphasize is we are here now.
0:55:25
There's an opportunity now.
0:55:26
I mean, we've been emphatic.
0:55:27
You've heard about what our view is in terms of outreach to us.
0:55:31
But, you know, even if you don't wanna take that view, we are here now.
0:55:35
This is not the end of the story.
0:55:37
This is a hearing today to hear it out, and we would greatly appreciate an opportunity to sit down facilitated by your office, with members of your office, with whoever it is that has reached out to your office to see if we can't address something now.
Christopher Marte
0:55:52
Okay.