Sportsman Tavern is one of two cases brought against the SLA in 2000 prompted by a Covid era regulation which went overboard by prohibiting advertised and /or ticketed live music at licensed bars and restaurants and its restricted of live music at licensed bars and restaurants to only that which is ” incidental to the dining experience. SLA tried to justify these restrictions based upon COVID but in reality, these restrictions were imposed by SLA in many different contexts and continue to do so, even after Covid. The Court easily slammed the as unlawfuI content-based restrictions of speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the corresponding provisions of the New York State Constitution.
The SLA panicked and retracted the regulations after it lost this and the related Hund v. Cuomo, fearful that the interpretation here would be applied broadly to non-Covid regulations and Method of Operation restrictions. But to be clear, Community Boards regularly impose these kinds of restrictions in forced stipulation, with the approval of the SLA.
Sportsmen’s Tavern LLC v. New York State Liquor Authority, Index No. 809297/2020 (Sup. Ct., Erie County, Sept. 30, 2020), appeal dismissed as moot and judgment vacated, Matter of Sportsmen’s Tavern LLC v. New York State Liquor Authority, 195 A.D.3d 1557, 1559 (App. Div. 4th Dept. 2021) (mootness; vacatur);
