Bar upgrade
A unique legal settlement has gone down just across town from Lawyer.com headquarters here in Basking Ridge, NJ. Apparently, a combo bar/restaurant called the Bamboo Grille had its liquor license suspended because of noise complaints from two neighbors. Not, of course, the rowdy roadhouse kinds of noises like bar fights and hollers, but that of amplified live music. Each spring prior to 2011, the bar opened up its mezzanine to the likes of acoustic duo 3 West and the Ed Fleischman Jazz trio. Clearly, raucous and disruptive young punks. These performances, from 7-10 pm Thursday through Saturday (what I like to call “bedtime for boring people”), were enough to rile up a couple of families across the way, who filed numerous complaints with the township over the course of three years. In 2011, the township suspended Bamboo Grille’s liquor license, later returning it on the condition that the bar no longer use electricity for outdoor music. Since then, the bar has been embroiled in a fight for their right to party.