The golfers at the Spring Rock Golf Center on Denton Avenue won’t be eating sushi – or any other meals there – anytime soon.
A proposal to open a restaurant to replace one at the New Hyde Park driving range that’s been defunct for three years was tabled for lack of information at the Town of North Hempstead council meeting on Tuesday night.
Sue Lee, a representative of Han Mari Inc., the company seeking to establish the restaurant as a tenant on the property, said plans included modest catering jobs, but “not doing weddings or huge parties.”
The primary function of business would be restaurant service that features foods such as sushi and fried Korean chicken.
Residents expressed misgivings about the sort of impact the restaurant would have on the surrounding area.
Allen Street resident Jerome Galluscio said the restaurant’s illegal operation – in an area zoned for recreational use – between 1999 and 2007 – shouldn’t “guarantee” its presence today.
“Unless we get an [environmental study] and a traffic study, I don’t know how this will affect my life,” he said.
Galluscio said whatever limitations the owners said they might set for themselves now, if the restaurant is successful he said it’s likely they’d seek to draw more customers to it on weekend nights.
“We are not adverse to the restaurant. Our concern was that it would become more than a restaurant and your parking lots would change,” said Jim McHugh, president of the New Hyde Park Civic Association. “We prefer [Spring Rock] there rather than Lowe’s,” he added, referring a to a rumor that the home consumer construction chain was interested in supplanting the driving range.
Kevin Bai, vice president of the Bai Corp. which owns Spring Rock, sought to reassure residents and the council of his company’s intentions.
“We are not creating any problems for the parking. We’ve just found a prospective tenant for the restaurant,” Bai said.
Johnni Park, general manager of Spring Rock, said many of the club’s member spend several hours there and need to eat while they’re there.
“The question is what kind of use,” said Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman. “We’re all in favor of people eating. It just has to be within the law.”
Town of North Hempstead Council members suggested Han Mari submit more specific plans – plans submitted to the building department had already been rejected – to define the seating area and other details of the establishment’s proposed operations.
“Let’s see if we can craft something that might work,” Kaiman said.
