An Upper West Side tiki bar is really lei-ing it on thick ཧto get neighborhood approval for its hula gi💦rl sign.
A depiction of a bare-breasted hula dancer on a sign outside the Tiki Chick bar on Amsterdam Avenue m⛄ade some residents hot ꦅunder the collar after it was installed earlier this year.
One neighbor at a community board meeting ranted that it was “culturally insensitive,” . Another said the bar, which has yet to open, was n⭕ot “family-focu✱sed.”
Pickle Hospitality, which operates the gin mill as well as the popular Jacob’s Pickles and Maison Pickle restaurants nearby, said plenty of people liked the hula 🎉girl,🅺 but it took down the sign anyway to appease the protesters.
“We 🍒had a lot of women in the neighborhood that we know, regular clientele t💮hat come to the restaurants, who are upset the original sign went down,” Arsham Kamali a Pickle Hospitality executive, said.
A month ago they said Aloha to a replacement sign — an 🌳image still featuring a hula dancer, but this time with a strategically placed♏ lei.
But the new hula girl has been welcomed by critics like a bowl of poi left in the sun too long, anꦗd sparked a new ꦆround of debate.
“Nothing is resolved. She is still obviously unclothed under the flowers, and her implied dancing would easily shift the flowers out of place and expose toplessness,” “We will not be dining there as long as the sign is up.”
A bemused reader replied: “That𒅌 is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. I pity your she🐓ltered children.”
“How about a 🥀barechested Tiki du🌟de for equality’s sake?” another reader quipped.
City Counci📖l member Helen Rosenthal, who represents the Upper West Side, also joined the anti-sign luau.
“The owner of this business has complied with applicable government regu🥂lations, and it’s important to note that freedom of expr🐲ession is protected in our country,” she said. “But we’re saddened that he’s chosen to represent a human being in such a retrograde way.”