BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 The Bethlehem Zoning Hearing Board voted Wednesday night to grant a special exception to the Fraternal Order of Police, Bethlehem Star Lodge #20, to establish a membership club in a current non-conforming restaurant.<\/p>\n
The FOP plans to purchase the Adagio Seafood Restaurant building at 530 Pembroke Road and convert it into a private membership club for City of Bethlehem police officers, both active and retired.<\/p>\n
The restaurant is a non-conforming use that operated in the building since the 1970s. The property is in the RT-high density residential zoning district.<\/p>\n
Currently, the building houses the restaurant with two bars and a banquet hall. The FOP said it plans to use the building on a smaller scale, converting the largest part of the property into a gym with weight equipment for members, a padded training room for defensive tactics and physical skills, and a space for professional training opportunities.<\/p>\n
Although the current use has a liquor license, the FOP says it has no intentions of purchasing the license from Adagio.<\/p>\n
In a letter from the FOP describing its plans to the zoning hearing board, the organization said the facility\u00a0“will provide Bethlehem’s police officers with a dedicated space to improve physical health and fitness, as well as host professional training opportunities that will ultimately benefit the entire community.”<\/p>\n
Short-term rental<\/p>\n
In another matter, the zoners announced that a scheduled hearing for 250 E. Market St. has been continued until Dec. 17.<\/p>\n
The appeal is from Evette Rios, on behalf of East Market Living LLC, to use a multi-unit house for short-term rentals.<\/p>\n
The property is in the RT-high density residential district.<\/p>\n
Attorney Timothy Stevens, representing Frank Boyer, a neighbor of the property, commented that this has been the second continuance granted and requested that if a third request is received from the applicant to further continue the matter on Dec. 17, it should be denied.<\/p>\n
“It should absolutely be denied unless there’s some extraordinary circumstances,” Stevens said. “We just wanted to alert the board that there are concerns that there are continuing violations.”<\/p>\n
Stevens said the property is still listed as available on Airbnb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 The Bethlehem Zoning Hearing Board voted Wednesday night to grant a special exception to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9507,9510,153,155,154,9508,3926,9505,9506,9509],"class_list":["post-12097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-adagio-restaurant-building","tag-adagio-seafood","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-star-lodge","tag-bethlehem-zoning-hearing-board","tag-east-market-living-llc","tag-evette-rios","tag-fraternal-order-of-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}