That’s a hell of a way to announce last call!
A hip Brooklyn bar was mistakenly raided by cops — led by the commanding officer of the local precinct — who barged inside and dumped all its booze down the drain, its angry owner charges.
The mix-up at Coco66 has kept the Greenpoint bar shuttered since the Prohibition-style police action in July, 2011, David Kelleran said in papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The confusion came after Kelleran bounced a check to the State Liquor Authority for his other establishment, “68” which was located directly next door on Greenpoint Avenue and held a separate liquor license, the lawsuit says.
Even though Kelleran had 10 days to re-send the $4,382, the cops busted into Coco66 — which had a valid liquor license — just five days later, the papers say.
They kicked everyone out and got rid of all the alcohol like they were FBI agents enforcing the Volstead Act, the papers allege.
“There is no provision in New York’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Law . . . that allows for the wholesale destruction of private property, without notice,’’ Kelleran’s lawyer, Craig Trainor, told The Post Wednesday.
“The utter and complete lawlessness exhibited by the NYPD in this case shocks the conscience,” Trainor said, noting that illegal drugs and counterfeit money aren’t destroyed when seized by cops.
The 94th Precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Terence Hurson, led the raid and boasted about it afterwards.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while — we’ve had noise complaints about the place,” Hurson told The Brooklyn Paper a week later.
A spokeswoman for the City Law Department said the agency is reviewing the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
NY POST
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