While local electeds and some residents are cheering the demise of the “booze Cruizes” out of Sheepshead Bay and Brooklyn as a whole, a number of bar mitzvah boys and their families are sitting shiva.
That after the borough celebrated the unofficial start of summer on Memorial Day on Monday with one longtime mainstay of the season missing – party boats.
“We can’t do anything out of Sheepshead Bay anymore. No bar mitzvahs. No weddings. No corporate events,” said an employee who answered the phone for the charter boat Atlantis, which used to operate out of Sheepshead Bay. “The law just changed recently. The parks department and local assemblyman don’t want any events boarding from the Sheepshead Bay Marina. We do a lot of work out of Manhattan and New Jersey now.”
Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz (D-Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach) first led the charge to ban the party boats from Sheepshead Bay along Emmons Avenue – a long time docking place for both fishing and party boats – after rowdy and often drunken partiers exited the boats in the wee hours of the morning causing havoc in the surrounding neighborhood.
This led to City Councilman Chaim Deutsch (D-Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach, Homecrest, Midwood) trying to come up with some compromises, which would limit the number of boats and times they would dock.
Eventually, Mayor Bill de Blasio stepped into the fray at a Sheepshead Bay Town Hall where he announced the party boats will leave Sheepshead Bay and move to Mill Basin. This led to protests among Mill Basin electeds including City Councilman Alan Maisel (D-Bergen Beach, Canarsie, Flatlands, Georgetown, Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Mill Island, Sheepshead Bay)
A spokesperson for Cymbrowitz said it is unfortunate that with the demise of party boats also come the demise of bar mitzvah boats, senior boating excursions, Sweet 16 parties, graduation parties, corporate parties and the like but “the city wouldn’t make any exceptions.”
Deutsch maintained Sheepshead Bay is not the proper locale for late night booze cruises.
“This small fishing village cannot sustain the sudden influx of visitors, and lack of parking, restroom facilities, and security become an issue. That said, I am wholly supportive of small businesses operating out of the pier, including fishing boats, educational cruises, and senior trips,” said Deutsch.
Maisel said he doesn’t care where the party boats get docked as long as it’s not in the Mill Basin Creek.
“As far as I was concerned Sheepshead Bay was built for boats and that’s where the boats should have been,” said Maisel.
The banning of the charter party boats comes amid reported mass overcrowding and long waits for cruise ships that tour around Manhattan and the New York City Harbor on Memorial Day.
These boats now all leave from Manhattan, costing Brooklyn tourist dollars and some Brooklyn bar mitzvah boys a lifetime memory of their ritualistic becoming a man while on the high seas of the New York City harbor.
