The city is taking Times Square’s Margaritaville to court over tens of thousands in unpaid fines the once-troubled venue has racked up from a dozen noise complaints over the last two years, according to a new filing made public this week.
With the conclusion of the resort’s foreclosure case not even a year behind it, and new ownership as a result of its auction sale in October, the iconic Jimmy Buffett-themed resort at 560 Seventh Ave., which just opened in 2021, is now on the hook for $54,741 stemming from 12 noise complaints lodged by one man between Sept. 21, 2022 and May 22, 2023, records show.
“I personally observed this bar deploy a single speaker, mounted outside, on the North side of the awning to this business, near the wall/the end of the name display, playing music at the general public on the sidewalk, in order to attract attention to this business,” said Queens resident Dietmar Detering, according to one of the summonses issued against the four-star hotel chain between West 41st and West 40th streets on Feb. 18, 2023 at about 7 pm.
Detering is a well-known noise-pollution vigilante who has made a name for himself — and the big bucks — traversing the city filing similar complaints against numerous bars and restaurants, many of them in Times Square. He told NBC News last year that he’s made a living for himself pursuing the practice.
It’s unclear how many total complaints — or how much money — Detering has made in his career as a citizen enforcer of loud music, or how many of them ultimately get dismissed.
In the case of the 32-story, 234-room resort, which features two rooftop bars and a heated outdoor pool, however, the city did follow through on at least a dozen of them, slapping the tropical oasis in the heart of bustling and boisterous Times Square with thousands of dollars in fines for excessive noise.
“Unreasonable noise from sound reproduction device,” another one of Detering’s complaints reads, which was filed on Nov. 23, 2022 at 1:06 pm.
Making matters worse, the Times Square resort, which had been in the middle of its foreclosure case, did not pay the fines or show up at its scheduled hearings to address the summonses, accruing additional penalties and prompting the city’s top lawyer, Judge Sylvia Hinds-Radix, to file the complaint against the property on June 11.
Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s law department, declined to comment on the specific lawsuit against Margaritaville but said it’s a “routine” way to “recover for non-payment of summonses.”
The Times Square Margaritaville opened to much fanfare in 2021. It joined an expanding global chain fashioned after the late-Buffett, a singer-songwriter whose hits included “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and, of course, “Margaritaville.” It’s been considered the city’s number one resort, according to TripAdvisor, and an abundance of glowing, albeit some tongue-in-cheek reviews.
But it wasn’t long before it ran into trouble. Soho Properties bought the Seventh Avenue property for $62 million in 2014 — with a $57 million loan at the time from Philadelphia-based Arden Group — and later developed the 170,000-square-foot building with Margaritaville Hospitality Group, hotel builder Flintlock Construction Services and IMCMV Holdings, Crain’s previously reported. Meanwhile, Arden had long been trying to foreclose on the resort, Crain’s reported last year, and in October was able to take control of the property after making the sole bid — just $1,000 — at the auction.
Representatives for neither Arden or Soho Properties responded to requests for comment. And attempts by Crain’s to reach the Margaritaville franchise were unsuccessful by press time.
Julianne Cuba , 2024-06-13 20:02:52
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