It may be a favored sport of retirees (it’s right up there with bridge and watching Wheel of Fortune), but Gowanus residents are worried that plans to build a bar with regulation-size shuffleboard courts will bring rowdy, inebriated crowds to their neighborhood, The Brooklyn Paper reports.
The Florida-inspired bar, dubbed Royal Palms, would feature live music and more than 8,000-square feet devoted to the senior citizen pastime. But neighbors fear that the bar will bring the bad behavior and the drunken hordes that have become a staple of the shuffleboard scene from Boca Raton to Key West.
“This is a nice quiet neighborhood [but] you’re gonna bring a lot of drunk people around here,” neighbor Joe Padilla told The Brooklyn Paper. “When business starts blowing up, it’s gonna get real dirty.”
Owner Ashley Albert has assured neighbors that her business won’t draw masses of belligerent, elderly booze-hounds, and yet, along with the court, she plans to add other features that are irresistible to the over-65 contingent (and Williamsburg hipsters): lounge music, bingo and episodes of “The Love Boat.”
But the neighbors know what’s up. First it’s shuffleboard courts, then it’s
kvelsey@observer.com
