Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Emojiis: Closed Valentine's Day, ordered to stay closed after 11.
A bar has been barred from expanding its hours — after a plea by the owners of Emojiis on Middletown Avenue got more thumbs down than smiley faces from local police and next-door neighbors.
The Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously during their latest meeting Tuesday night to deny an application by Emojiis’ owner Yara Narvaez to keep the sports bar open for later and longer.
That was after community cops and nearby residents complained during the public hearing about consistent issues with the venue, including loud noise and operational violations.
Narvaez, meanwhile, rejected those claims as either false or the fault of old ownership, and pressed the need for extended hours in order to keep her business afloat.
Narvaez had requested two special exceptions from the board in hopes of allowing live entertainment at the bar at 631 Middletown Ave. and closing hours of 12:15 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 1:45 a.m. Friday and Saturday rather than 11 p.m.
“How many times have we had to turn away customers at 10:30 and tell them we close at 11?” Narvaez lamented. “It’s insane.”
“We just want to thrive and be given a fair chance so we can finally see some money back from everything we have invested in here, which is basically our life savings,” she said of the “team of legit family and friends trying to keep this club running.”
District top cop Lt. Brian McDermott, however, said that since Narvaez took over the bar in 2020, the place has received noise complaints and gotten in trouble for serving food and beverages without the proper permits. After documenting several violations, McDermott said Emojiis was placed on probation and allowed to operate under limited hours — but a later inspection found that the bar was serving patrons when they were supposed to be closed.
“They were given a probationary period to prove they could abide by the rules … and they have shown no respect for the laws and ordinances of the city or the state liquor laws,” McDermott said.
Several neighbors also spoke out against the application, complaining about live music from the scene disrupting their sleep and claiming the bar draws drug deals and criminal behavior like car break-ins.
“When you’re talking about making money,” one woman said of Narvaez, “I need to make my money.”
Former Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes agreed: “In this community, nearly everyone is a working person. They want to get to bed… You don’t wanna stay up because of noise and music so late… You don’t wanna go to bed at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning and be up at 6.”
Others vouched for Narvaez. Dawn Starkey, for example, said she lives with her daughter in an apartment “directly above the bar.”
“I’ve been for three years. The property is clean, it’s secure … My daughter sleeps peacefully at night and beautifully.”
Yes, Narvaez agreed — ”The majority of complaints from neighbors are from the past,” she insisted. She’s never allowed live music at the establishment, she said, unlike previous owners.
“This isn’t Poor John’s Pub or Middletown Cafe,” she said, recalling former businesses in the building. This is Emojiis.
BZA Chair Mildred Melendez wasn’t buying it.
“I’m voting to decline based on the manager’s report,” she said. No consideration for new hours would be granted, she said, unless the owners could “come back with some kind of agreement from the police department.”
Glad to see your application was denied and hopefully will stay denied forever. You have proved yourself to be untrustworthy by violating even the simple rules that you have now hence your probation so while you cry that you are doing the "right things" the facts say otherwise.
Thank you BZA you have truly done the right thing here.