Paterson residents oppose liquor license for site that was raided 5 times by police
PATERSON — Community leaders in South Paterson have mounted opposition to a liquor license application at a business location raided five times by Paterson police in 2019 and 2020.
The city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control board is scheduled on Wednesday to hear Golden Rock Café’s request to acquire a liquor license for the property at 210 E. Railway Ave.
No business has operated at that location for the past year, a lull that has given area residents a break from the chronic problems that happened there during the previous decade, community leaders said.
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“South Paterson is the most successful community of all the wards in the city of Paterson,” said Raed Odeh, president of the South Paterson Business Association, among the leaders of a group that is urging city officials to deny the liquor license application.
“One of the reasons is that we’ve had a lot of bars and liquor stores move out of South Paterson in the last 25 years,” Odeh added. “That has provided an opportunity for high-quality businesses to move in, like fancy restaurants.”
Odeh and Councilman Al Abdelaziz also pointed out that the Islamic Center of Passaic County recently got approvals to build a recreation center on West Railway Avenue, on the other side of the railroad tracks from Golden Rock’s location.
Five raids over two years at Besan Lounge
Abdelaziz, who represents the South Paterson area, said the Golden Rock site had been a warehouse until about 13 years ago, when it was converted to a restaurant, a business that did not have a liquor license.
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The restaurant, called Besan Café, came under scrutiny when a double, non-fatal shooting happened on its premises at 5:30 a.m. in July 2018. City authorities determined that Besan was hosting an alleged illegal after-hours club.
Paterson police then conducted five raids over the course of two years at Besan Lounge. The business name subsequently changed to Dubai Lounge, but residents in the area still had complaints, Abdelaziz said.
“It was a neighborhood nuisance,” the councilman said.
It was not immediately clear what connections, if any, the Golden Rock business group has to the people who ran Besan and the Dubai Lounge. The phone number listed on the liquor license application for Golden Rock is out of service.
Abdelaziz and Odeh said adding the sale of alcohol would only make things worse at a location that already has a track record of creating quality-of-life problems.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson leaders oppose liquor license for site raided 5 times
