Albany

Telling a bar it has to close at 11 p.m. is like forbidding McDonald's from selling french fries.

It's like prohibiting a dentist from filling cavities.

It's like banning mustard from a hot-dog stand.

Such changes would surely cripple the businesses. Long-term, they might not survive.

So you can understand why Juan Picasso, owner of the legendary Palais Royale, is upset that the city of Albany is proposing new zoning rules that would move the closing time of his Jefferson Street bar from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Picasso is not the only one worried. Business owners on nearby Lark Street and Madison Avenue are protesting because the new rules could force them to close at 2 a.m. Even the neighborhood's Price Chopper could be affected by the requirements.

The changes are all part of a citywide rezoning plan that has been in the works for years and could be presented to the Common Council for approval as early as next month.

Here's the good news: Overall, the new zoning code promises to make Albany more friendly to businesses and construction by replacing the city's labyrinthine, baffling code with simple, easy-to-understand rules. It should streamline development.

Over time, the updated code will also make the city more walkable and livable by scrapping ridiculous codes that force suburban-style rules on dense city neighborhoods.

But as currently written, the citywide rezoning would also bring pain that would be felt most severely by businesses in the Center Square and Hudson/Park neighborhoods.

Partly, that's because the neighborhoods are so unusual. They mix college-centric nightlife with some of the city's loveliest residential streets. On some blocks off Lark, bars are surrounded by homes and apartments, and those are the bars that would have to close at 11 p.m.

That's the scenario facing the Palais, which has been at its current location since at least the 1960s and has a history worthy of a book. Jefferson Street is lined with cheek-by-jowl homes, with the Palais and an auto-body shop as notable exceptions.

We don't build like this anymore. Since the advent of strict zoning codes, a tavern would never be set among homes of a suburban cul-de-sac, just as single-family homes are rare on strips such as Wolf Road.

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Because it's so unusual, we tend to assume that bars like the Palais have a negative impact on neighboring homes, but in urban environments the opposite is often true — as Jane Jacobs, the guru of sensible urban planning, explained in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," her highly influential book.

Jacobs detailed how a bar in her Greenwich Village neighborhood put "eyes on the street" that made it safer. "The comings and goings from this bar do much to keep our street reasonably populated until three in the morning, and the street is always safe to come home to," she wrote.

Jefferson Street could be a more desolate and perhaps more dangerous place were the Palais to close. The city and region would be poorer for it, too.

"This place really is a part of Albany history," Picasso told me Monday. "It has a soul all its own." Picasso, 43, bought the Palais in 2005, shortly after the death of longtime owner Rocky Nigro, who spoke with pride of a bar that served governors alongside working men. Picasso may have irritated some longtime customers by making the bar a touch more upscale, but the Palais still mixes elderly regulars with college students and hipsters.

The bar's colorful past fits its city. Albany has long been raucous, as William Kennedy's books make clear, but the proposed zoning changes seem to suggest a more subdued city, at least along Lark Street.

I spent some time on Monday talking to Chris Spencer, the city's planning director, and I believe him when he says the city has no desire to see businesses like the Palais close or suffer.

The new rules, Spencer said, are about trying to find a balance that's particularly difficult in the Lark Street area. He said the city wants to be fair to existing businesses, but also wants to reassure weary neighbors that no new bars will be open until 4 a.m.

The city initially wanted to give existing business two years to comply with the new rules. But Spencer said officials are now considering a grandfather clause that would allow businesses to keep existing closing times until they change ownership.

That didn't mollify Picasso — and for good reasons. Given that most of its money is made after 11 p.m., the business would become unattractive to future buyers, he said. Eventually, the Palais would cease to exist.

"I would like the bar to continue as it has continued," Picasso said. "I would really hope that it would live on after me."

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5442 • @chris_churchill