This went just about how we thought it would: Fishtown neighbors voted 57 opposed and 38 in favor of David Grasso’s proposed 2,600-capacity live music venue at a neighborhood zoning meeting held last night. Early reports had suggested that zoning for Grasso’s venue had been grandfathered in, with a City Council/Frank DiCicco-led exemption from a nightclub ban along Delaware Avenue, which had us wondering why Grasso would go pleading to neighbors in the first place. But as this Brownstoner report explains, that exemption is far from set in stone, and after last night’s vote, DiCicco and Grasso vowed to come back to neighbors with an amended ordinance in the hopes that there can be some compromise between the developer and neighbors. For his part, Grasso continued to gun against the Electric Factory, the venue that most believe would be Grasso’s direct competition, flatly stating at the meeting that “a lot of artists won’t play at the Electric Factory” — thereby continuing a pattern of what seems to be disinformation as well as fueling rumors that Grasso’s venue would be booked by Live Nation, which parted ways with the Factory last winter. Meanwhile, no neighborhood meeting about a proposed venue in Fishtown would be complete, and this one had lots of debate about what a “club” is or is not, and whether or not Grasso’s venues would ever feature “DJs.” According to one tipster on the scene, “Only in Fishtown would you have people complaining about potential tailgaters while drinking beer in a church at a community meeting.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 11:21 am.