ALBANY — Bar and nightclub owners angry about Albany's new system for cabaret licenses plan to fight the regulation because it requires live music, DJs and karaoke to stop at 2 a.m., or midnight during the week for some — rules that Albany Common Council member Ronald Bailey said he was unaware would be imposed when the council passed the law.

"We have a number of concerns over the legality of the ordinance," said attorney Stephen G. DeNigris, a former Albany police officer who practices law locally and in Washington. He has been retained by Waterworks Pub owner Robert Savoca and is seeking to build a coalition of affected bar and nightclub owners who want the cabaret-licensing law overturned. He is also appealing the hours restrictions on the Waterworks' cabaret permit through the city's Board of Zoning Appeals.

"Within the next week or so we anticipate mounting a challenge on a number of different grounds," DeNigris said. While declining to discuss all of his legal strategy, DeNigris said he believes there are fundamental problems with the language of the cabaret law and the way it has been implemented by the city clerk's office, which issues the annual permits after input from city departments including fire, police, planning and code enforcement.

Bailey, who represents the Third Ward on Albany's Common Council, said Thursday he learned of the midnight/2 a.m. restriction only the day before and believes it goes beyond the intention of the council. The law makes no mention of hours, leaving responsibility with city departments to "promulgate such reasonable rules and regulations ... necessary for the proper control, operation and supervision of cabarets."

"This may be something that needs to be amended or overturned," Bailey said, adding that he plans to raise the matter with fellow council members on Monday.

Jeffery Jamison, Albany's director of building and codes, said he is confident the cabaret-licensing law will withstand legal challenges.

A rally, called Save Our Jobs and Our Bars, is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday at Townsend Park in Albany. It will be followed by a march to City Hall, where the Board of Zoning Appeals will hold a regularly scheduled meeting. Among the items on the agenda is an application by restaurateur John DeJohn to be able to keep his Lark Street businesses, DeJohn's Restaurant & Pub and Legends Sports Lounge, open until 4 a.m., two hours later than is currently allowed by their city-issued special-use permits. The matter does not involve cabaret licenses, but organizers appear to be piggybacking two late-night issues. More than 150 people signed up to attend within three hours of the event being announced Thursday afternoon on Facebook.

The rally is being organized by Shawn Gillie, a FLY92 radio personality who DJs at clubs including Waterworks. His Wednesday-night shift at Waterworks this week was moved across the street to the club Rocks because it goes past midnight and would have put Waterworks in violation of its new license's cutoff for weeknights. (Rocks' license is pending and thus it is still permitted to have entertainment until 4 a.m.) Licenses take effect when they are received by the business.

"This new law is absolutely ridiculous. It basically kills three of my nights," said Gillie, who DJs midweek. "I can see a domino effect. It's not just entertainers losing gigs — it's bartenders losing shifts and income, bars losing business, distributors losing clients. There's a long string of people this is going to affect. I can see bars having to close."

Among objections to the new licensing law, adopted this spring, is that it does not specify permissible hours for live music, DJs and karaoke. However, all 25 of the licenses issued Wednesday, the first batch to be released by City Clerk Nala Woodard, require bars to stop such entertainment at 2 a.m. or earlier, depending on location. Bars may play recorded music over a sound system until 4 a.m. Woodard said Wednesday the midnight/2 a.m. limits will be the latest times allowed on all future cabaret licenses. Cabaret permits also stipulate that no one younger than 21 is allowed in a licensed bar or club after 11 p.m., language that is also not in the law.

In a Thursday letter to the city clerk's office, DeNigris called the under-21 prohibition "clearly inappropriate" and wrote, "the time restrictions your office unilaterally imposed on my client is ... in excess of your legal authority."

"By what set of standards did they make those determinations?" asked DeNigris in a phone interview. "Well, that's what the mayor has publicly said he wants — bars to close at 2 a.m. — so that's where they came up with it. I don't think that would stand up in court," he said.

In January 2011, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, citing increased police calls in the wee hours, asked Albany bar owners to consider closing voluntarily at 2 a.m., saying, "It's my conclusion that between 2 and 5 (a.m.) not a lot of good things happen." Arguing that those hours are their most lucrative, bars in the college district, downtown and Lark Street areas refused to close early. State law mandates that alcohol sales stop at 4 a.m., though counties may enact earlier closing times; Albany's, like all other counties' in the Capital Region, is 4 a.m.

"Since (Jennings) couldn't get the county to go along with him, this is the way he did it," DeNigris said.

Opponents of the way the cabaret permits impose restrictions not mentioned in the law say that the Jennings administration is effectively legislating without going through the legislative process. Bailey agreed.

"As far as I'm concerned, that's what they're doing," he said.

Jamison said the Common Council was fully involved in the more than yearlong development of the law.

"There are quality-of-life concerns at issue here. ... Everybody had their say — business owners, the public, the city, police. Members of the Common Council had time to give their input and recommendations," he said. "I don't think the intent of the legislature is any different than how we are administering the ordinance."

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