City firm on eatery hour limits

Gourmet Heaven on Weybosset Street in downtown Providence looks like a Manhattan deli, from the giant salad bar and steam table, to the tiny seating area perched above the shelves and wide array of chicken cutlets piled in the refrigerated counter.
Unlike delis in the Big Apple, however, Gourmet Heaven can’t stay open all night, a source of frustration for owner Chung Cho and other Providence food-business proprietors who want to serve the late-night crowd.
While Providence’s entertainment sector has grown with its downtown and student populations in recent years, the city has kept strict limits on businesses staying open after 2 a.m.
“I don’t know how Providence can advance as a city when we treat our businesses like they are in elementary school,” said Rep. John J. DeSimone, D-Providence, an attorney who represented Gourmet Heaven in its unsuccessful bid this summer to stay open all night. “They should be granting these licenses and allowing these businesses to flourish and then if something happens take them away.”
The city’s aversion to 24-hour eateries stems in part from past epidemics of nightclub-related violence, an issue city and industry leaders are still wrestling with.
Yet business owners wonder what makes Providence different from other cities that have allowed 24-hour businesses for years and avoided lawlessness and crime.
And as the city increasingly leverages its cultural assets to attract new residents and businesses, restrictions on additional amenities for those residents have come under scrutiny.
DeSimone said Gourmet Heaven would “most likely” appeal the decision on grounds that there are some establishments allowed to operate around the clock and the Providence Board of Licenses’ denial was arbitrary.
Even among neutral parties in the Gourmet Heaven debate, there is a sense that a 24-hour live-work environment is in the city’s not-too-distant future.
“We want to be where young, entrepreneurial professionals are and the old model of 9-to-5 work hours is changing – someday that won’t be the majority,” said Frank LaTorre, director of the Providence Downtown Improvement District and member of the Hospitality Resource Partnership, a group of nightclub industry, institutional and community leaders working to clean up downtown nightlife. “They are up later because it’s a cosmopolitan scene. We are getting very close to that point because of all the progress we have made as a coalition to get a handle on public safety.” Citing the work the Board of Licenses has done with police, the City Council and the Resource Partnership to set rules that weed out bad club owners, LaTorre said the quality of late-night entertainment in the city has improved.
And that, combined with more people eventually living downtown, in buildings like Providence G, the Arcade and, someday, maybe the Industrial Trust Tower, should make the area feel safer, generating a feedback cycle attracting more people and investment.
“The nightlife is transforming so dramatically and so fast that having something open till 4 [a.m.] will make sense,” said LaTorre, who declined to take sides in the Gourmet Heaven denial.
“In the last year dramatic things have happened, and we are seeing the signs of a more diverse place with different kinds of establishments opening up,” he added. “Couple that with more people living downtown, so there are more customers and the people downtown at night aren’t just coming out of clubs and bars.”
But if Providence is going to become “the most thriving nighttime economy in New England,” as LaTorre has said he hopes, it will have to convince perhaps the biggest drivers of growth, its colleges, that 24-hour life is not a threat.
In the debate about Gourmet Heaven, both Johnson & Wales University and Brown University opposed the deli’s application to stay open late out of safety concerns.
Much of Gourmet Heaven’s business revolves around the two schools. Its first Providence location on Weybosset Street is across the street from the main entrance to JWU’s downtown campus and its new Meeting Street deli is in the thriving Thayer Street corridor attached to Brown.
“Our opposition is rooted in the fact that 24-hour establishments on Weybosset would be on the front doorstep to campus, in an area where we house 1,000 freshmen students and is surrounded by an area that is full of bars and nightclubs,” said Michael P. Quinn, executive director for campus safety and security at JWU. “While things appear to be getting much better with the staggered closing-hour strategy the city has implemented, this would seem to go against that. This would cause people to stick around in Downcity across the street to our front doorstep after they leave these late-night establishments. That is troubling.” Brown spokeswoman Marissa Quinn (no relation) echoed those concerns.
“Brown has a stake in the character and composition of Thayer Street,” Quinn said. “Having Thayer Street be a location that provides 24-hour food could be a magnet for late-night activity and our concern is safety and security.”
Providence police were somewhat less concerned about the security risks of 24-hour delis.
Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Pare wrote a letter supporting a 90-day trial period of all-night operation of both Gourmet Heaven store that would include police access to the business’ internal and external security cameras.
In its decision, the Licensing Board was less worried about a direct crime concern at Gourmet Heaven, than that allowing the deli to stay open all night could open the floodgates to nearly unlimited late-night eateries.
“It is a question of fairness and can the police handle all the other 24-hour establishments,” said Licensing Board Chairman Andrew Annaldo. “The issue is much bigger than Gourmet Heaven.”
Although concerned about the precedent it would set, Annaldo acknowledged that Gourmet Heaven wouldn’t be the first place to stay open all night in Providence. Just a block away from Gourmet Heaven’s Weybosset Street deli is one of two 24-hour 7-Eleven stores in downtown.
Although more down-market, the convenience store’s offerings are not totally dissimilar from Gourmet Heaven. Neither sell any alcohol.
Citywide there are six establishments, not counting gas stations and delivery-only pizza places, with 24-hour licenses, according Director of Licensing Serena Conley.
They include two restaurants in the Olneyville neighborhood, Wes’ Rib House and Olneyville New York System; the IHOP restaurant on Pleasant Valley Parkway; the Haven Brothers downtown food truck and the two 7-Elevens.
At the hearing on Gourmet Heaven’s application, representatives of Weybosset neighbors Saki’s Pizza and Pizza Queen also expressed interest in staying open past 2 a.m.
Annaldo said the fact that the number of Providence police on the streets has dropped by 80 officers since the recession makes emulating New York or other 24-hour cities impractical.
David Ortiz, spokesman for Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, said the mayor is not looking at a change in policy toward late-night businesses and is “supportive of the way the Licensing Board has handled these requests.” •

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