ALBANY, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) – An axe-throwing venue isn’t entitled to preliminary relief in its lawsuit against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state liquor authority.
The lawsuit by Yard Hatchet House & Bar of Albany seeks to prevent Cuomo from issuing any COVID-19-related closure orders on bars and restaurants with axe-throwing while businesses like bowling alleys are allowed to stay open.
Yard Hatchet spent 18 months and $30,000 getting its liquor license but got into trouble when someone complained there was axe-throwing at the Yard Hatchet bar, in violation of a COVID-19 regulation.
“Because this case involves a challenge to state action that neither burdens a suspect class nor impinges on a fundamental right, the challenged executive order is subject to rational basis review,” Judge Mae D’Agostino wrote on Feb. 22.
“Utilizing this framework, the Court presumes that the executive action is constitutional, making it incumbent upon the plaintiff to negate ‘every conceivable basis which might support’ it. That is no easy task, as the plaintiff must disprove all possible justifications for the executive action regardless of whether those justifications actually motivated the underlying decision-making.”
Yard Hatchet failed to convince D’Agostino of the likelihood of its success.
“(T)he Court is unable to find that axe-throwing venues and bowling alleys/casinos are sufficiently similar for Plaintiff to succeed on its Equal Protection claim,” she wrote.