Prospect Heights Neighbors Want State Crackdown on Bleachers and Woodland

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A group of Prospect Heights neighbors are stepping up their campaign against Bleachers Sports Bar & Grill and Woodland, two Flatbush Avenue businesses they say are responsible for sending drunken, belligerent, and increasingly dangerous guests onto surrounding residential streets at all hours of the night.

Adam Zucker, a co-founder of Neighbors Against Nuisance from Woodland and Bleachers (NANWAB), said he and his fellow neighbors have spent years trying to get the businesses to address the behavior of their guests.

Both serve alcohol until 4 a.m., he said, and fail to provide security outside their exits, resulting in public drug use, drunk driving, and "nearly-nightly fights."

But the breaking point came last week, he said, when an off-duty NYPD officer leaving Bleachers shot a man who was allegedly attempting to mug him.

DNAinfo reported that four shots were fired in total, including one that pierced the window of a nearby house.

He also said the owner of the building where both establishments are located, Lena Fang, "has been complicit in this since the beginning."

Fang did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday. Messages left for the owners of Woodland and Bleachers were not immediately returned, either.

Zucker said that about 50 people attended a neighborhood meeting Sunday night to express their concerns about the businesses, as did Captain Frank DiGiacomo, who heads the NYPD's 78th Precinct, Councilman Brad Lander, and representatives from the mayor's office and the office of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Since then, the NYPD has started patrolling the streets outside the restaurants more closely, Zucker said, but NANWAB isn't satisfied.

The group wants the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA) to review the liquor licenses held by both businesses, with the goal of forcing them to stop serving drinks at 1 a.m. and ending all bottle service. (An online petition has been circulated calling for the review.)

The community members also want local elected officials and Community Board 6 to push for SLA action. Several neighbors attended Monday's meeting of the Board's licensing committee, in the hope that it would back their cause. But the committee's members, while supporting NANWAB's efforts, voted to send the matter to the CB6's public safety committee, which they said was the appropriate forum for further discussion.

On Tuesday, Brad Lander issued a statement backing NANWAB.

"Neighbors are understandably very upset -- about the shooting last weekend, and the escalating quality-of-life issues from these three adjacent bars/nightclubs," Lander said, including Flatbush Avenue business Sugarcane Restaurant in his remarks. "We are committed to working together with the neighbors, other elected officials, the community board, the precinct, city agencies, and the bar owners to find solutions that restore peace on these blocks."

Pictured at top: Woodland. Photos by John V. Santore