Jump to full article: New York Daily News, 2009-05-19
Author: Nicholas Hirshon
Intro: A QUEENS community board flouted the law by bouncing the public and the press from a meeting last week amid debates over a Queens News article in which board members blasted a hookah lounge, a state official said.
The chairman of Community Board 6 in Forest Hills called for a closed-door session Wednesday on the issue that - though controversial - didn't match the set of circumstances in which boards are allowed to toss the audience.
Chairman Joseph Hennessy, who also didn't hold a mandatory vote before entering the session, later told Queens News that he wanted to chide board members for talking to the press as if representing the board.
His anger stemmed from a May 5 article that quoted a pair of board members criticizing the Hookahloopa Lounge, which opened in late December with sexually charged names slapped on its tobacco treats.
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