Alcohol returns to the Staten Island Ferry; what about the LIRR?

Last week, vendors started selling alcohol again on the Staten Island Ferry after seven dry years.

Could the Long Island Rail Road be next?

"It’s extremely doubtful," Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member and chair of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA Gerard Bringmann said Monday. "I don’t see anybody on the board who would really want to carry the torch to get bar cars — or, bar carts — back ... I honestly think it’s a non-starter."

New York City operates the   fleet of ferries that travel from lower Manhattan to St. George Terminal in Staten Island. It brought back alcohol sales on one of its ferries on Sunday and plans to add liquor sales to other boats soon. The ferry carries over 16 million passengers annually on a 5.2-mile run between the two boroughs around the clock and without charge.

Though most railroad riders today might find it hard to believe, there was a time when the LIRR had bar cars — and, smoking cars — and riders could buy a drink, have a smoke and sit and play cards on the way home to Long Island.

The MTA banned smoking on all LIRR trains in February 1988, then dropped bar car service when its new fleet arrived in 1999.

Bar carts, when riders once could buy beer and cocktails on the platforms at Penn Station, Jamaica, Atlantic Terminal and Hunterspoint Avenue, ceased operation on March 18, 2018, while Metro-North shut down its last bar car service in March 2014 and stopped bar carts at Grand Central Terminal in 2016 — after a revenue scandal hastened the end.

Though the MTA and LIRR did not immediately respond to requests Monday seeking comment on any possible reinstatement of bar car or bar cart service, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan told Newsday in 2018: "This service was subject to various reviews that led us to conclude that it’s not our core competency — and, that we should stay focused on providing safe and reliable transportation."

At the time, the MTA said bar cart sales generated about $600,000 a year for the railroad — a sliver of its then $1.6-billion revenue.

The New York City Department of Transportation agreed to reinstate bar service on the ferries for the first time since 2019, with its new vendor, a Dunkin’ franchisee, signing a 10-year lease that pays the city $27,000 a month. Bringmann said the MTA and railroad would be loath to the idea of selling alcohol again.

First, Bringmann said, there are the potential liabilities of having a commuter injured in an alcohol-related accident on railroad property, or having a rider involved in a post-commute drunken-driving incident.

And Bringmann noted that riders can still buy alcohol from stores on the concourses at Penn and Grand Central — and, other than during certain designated ban days, such as New Year's Eve and St. Patrick’s Day — can still bring alcohol aboard and drink on LIRR trains.

"As long as you’re not drunk and disorderly," Bringmann said, "you can still enjoy a beer on the way home."

As for ever seeing a return of the bar car? No way, Bringmann said.

"You’d have to reconfigure trains and we already don’t have enough rolling stock to begin with. And you’d get pushback from the vendors upstairs [at Penn and Grand Central], saying: ‘You’re taking business away from us.’

"Besides," Bringmann said, "when you consider the risk versus reward, it’s just not worth the risk to bring it back."