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I remember meeting with these coffee house operators with Lanigan and myself because I was then the law chairman for the VID. And we pressed through -- and I testified for it -- a change in the law that would allow these coffee houses to operate legally. Of course the coffee house people were delighted. The people who lived on that block hated me, hated the idea hated Lanigan. We're legalizing all these joints, some of which were good, some of which were not good, and none of which cared about the neighborhood and the impact on the neighborhood. And you'd have tens of thousands of people coming in the course of a year. On one night we clocked in front of Harry Rissetto's 10,000 people in the space of maybe an hour or two walking back and forth. It may have been the same 200, but I'm just telling you, 10,000 people were clocked passing his liquor store. You couldn't walk in the street -- it was incredible. You had to have cops down there with forces to control the crowds. It was incredible.
So then the mess got worse. Carmine made it the issue. Then I came into the situation trying to reverse the tide, so to speak -- not against coffee houses, because I think coffee houses are good, including the ones that have entertainment. They became show cases for people, and there's nothing wrong with them -- there's nothing wrong with entertainment.
I remember one restaurant, Granada's, a very good Spanish restaurant. They had a gypsy guitar player. It was a high-class
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