Harrisburg is trying to shut down the Third Street Cafe, foreground, and the Taproom next door for alleged violations of their mercantile licenses.
When you enter the Taproom in Midtown Harrisburg, you immediately notice several things: the ingrained smell of stale cigarette smoke, the sound of some old jukebox rock, a few well-oiled customers at the bar.
It’s about 11 a.m. on a Monday, and one guy who says he works construction (and plans to return to work) is deep into a pitcher of beer. A couple of older men in disheveled suits, laughing and slurring their words, say they’ve been regulars for years.
It’s a mixed crowd: young, old, black, white, workingman, professional, and the patrons all seem to know each other.
This is bar culture at its most basic, the kind of place that once lined block after block of old Harrisburg—the watering hole for the neighborhood, a gritty, downscale “Cheers.”
The Taproom is also, according to the city, a magnet for crime, and because of this determination, is under threat of losing its business license at the end of the month.
Harrisburg has notified three bars—the Taproom and the Third Street Café, located next door to one another in Midtown, and the Royal Pub in Uptown—that it intends to revoke their mercantile licenses.
“We’re revoking their business licenses on grounds that they violated their agreement to operate in an acceptable manner,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “We consider a business license a privilege, not a right.”
Papenfuse said city police have documented repeated incidents of criminal activity in and around the bars, such as drug activity, though he would not state the exact claims against the bars.
Dave Larche, 68, has operated the Taproom for 23 years and, recently, has seen many changes come to the commercial core of Midtown. He believes that’s the real issue, that powerful people no longer want his bar on the block.
“I think there’s an agenda because they want to do something on this side of the street,” he said, adding that, years ago, there were five bars like his along the 1400-block of N. 3rd Street.
Dave Larche, owner of the Taproom, inside his bar.
Indeed, Midtown is undergoing a transformation. In January, the new Susquehanna Art Museum opened across the street, and, two doors up, starting this summer, Greenworks Development plans to create a U-GRO Learning Center pre-school from a former hardware store. Nearby, the Millworks restaurant and art studio space recently opened, as did the Zeroday Brewing Co. tasting room.
The dissonance between SAM’s gleaming new facility and the two rundown bars across the street is striking. As art patrons visit the museum, visibly intoxicated people often loiter nearby, sometimes causing commotion. Just last month, a fight broke out outside Third Street Café, with a man collapsing near the front door, and, a few weeks later, a shooting occurred in the back alley.
Larche largely blames his next-door neighbor, Third Street Café, for the problems on the block, which he says include public urination, people sleeping in nearby doorways and fights.
Third Street Café’s owner, Tony Paliometros, denies responsibility, saying that he runs a clean, professional bar and that he can’t control what happens outside his place.
“If someone wants to do something, they can do it outside a school or the courthouse,” he said. “Does that mean you close the school or courthouse?”
Paliometros agrees with Larche that his bar is a victim of people who wish to change the neighborhood.
“They built the new museum, and I guess they want to clear the area,” he said.
Papenfuse, who owns Midtown Scholar Bookstore and several other buildings nearby, denies that he is purposely targeting the bars for closure. Drug activity, he said, has been linked to both bars in violation of the terms of their mercantile licenses.
According to the city’s “Business Privilege and Mercantile Tax Regulation” handbook, the city reserves the right to revoke licenses for “any behavior which would constitute a crime under federal, state or local laws, including, but not limited to, drug trafficking or drug possession; committed an act of gross negligence, or allowed any manner or form of public nuisance.”
Larche admits that cocaine was found inside the Taproom last year, within a dart box, but that he can’t control what each of his customers does, even inside his bar.
Paliometros said that he needs to meet with his attorney to decide if he’s going to appeal the revocation before the city’s three-person Mercantile Licensing and Tax Appeals Board, which meets in city hall at 2 p.m. on April 30. Larche said that he is appealing, but holds little hope of winning.
“It don’t look good,” he said. “My lawyer said we can appeal it, but I think it’s pretty well done.”
Both Paliometros and Larche wonder where their patrons will go if their bars close. Paliometros expects that some will migrate to bars Uptown, while Larche said that he just doesn’t know.
“This is a neighborhood bar—a real neighborhood bar,” he said. “There are people in this world who don’t want to go to Arooga’s.”
