BROOKLYN, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - Partiers in New York were delivered a buzzkill on Nov. 8 when a federal judge rejected an entertainment venue's request to sell alcohol between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. on New Year's Day.
Judge Frederic Block denied a request for a preliminary injunction as Eris Evolution, in Brooklyn, sought relief that would allow it to apply for an all-night permit to sell alcohol.
New Year's Eve falls on a Saturday this year, and the New York State Liquor Authority refused to shed normal Sunday drinking laws. Block ruled Eris has not shown a likelihood of success for its case.
"Its sole claim is that New York's ban on Sunday all-night permits violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment)," Block wrote.
"But that claim is foreclosed by a trio of Supreme Court cases decided more than 60 years ago."
Included in that trio is 1961's McGowan v. Maryland, which dealt with barred Sunday commercial activities. The court found Sunday closing rules "as presently written and administered, most of them, at least, are of a secular rather than of a religious character, and that presently they bear no relationship to establishment of religion as those words are used in the Constitution of the United States."
"Eris must do more than show that the law is irrational," Block wrote, "it must also show that its real purpose is to advance a particular religion or religion in general. This it has failed to do."
Eris is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
"New Year's Eve is not a day of rest for most New Yorkers," the lawsuit says. "There is no secular purpose behind the prohibition of All-Night Permits on New Year's Sundays."
Currently, Eris can't even apply for the permit, even though it has been issued one in years past, with the exception of COVID-ravaged 2021. It seeks court intervention to allow it to do so.