Brooklyn Ale House - Williamsburg

For a complete list of bars that allow dogs: click here for Manhattan bars or click here for Brooklyn bars.

On the Bar, Milk-Bones Next to the Mixed Nuts

By JEFF VANDAM

Published: January 9, 2005 for the New York Times

t was opening time at the Brooklyn Ale House, and as the afternoon sun spilled through the front windows on Berry Street, the bar's first customer moped about near the entrance. Few souls had decided to join him for a brew at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, and he appeared genuinely forlorn.

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Soon, the owner, Sean Connelly, poured a short one of Guinness for the customer, and he perked right up. He jumped onto a bench and enthusiastically lapped up the beer, finishing it in under two minutes. The customer, whose name is Balto, might have another beer that night, maybe two, but not three, because dogs, as it happens, do not enjoy getting drunk. As far as we know.

There is no legal drinking age for dogs, nor, in fact, are they allowed in bars, and yet there they are, in taverns and dives all over New York. In the younger areas of the city - the East Village, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg - it is at times difficult to approach the taps without stepping on a tail and producing some surprised yelps.

During a typical evening at the Brooklyn Ale House, known throughout Williamsburg and beyond as "the dog bar," three or so dogs will roll in and congregate under the pool table or by the stools. Balto, who grew up in the bar and has a white streak running down his brown face, presides. "He's the manager, actually," said his owner, Mr. Connelly, a former Brooklyn Brewery employee who built the bar seven years ago from the shell of a bodega. "He trains all the other dogs that come in here."

Mr. Connelly's was one of the first pubs to allow dogs when it opened, he said, and now they can't stay away. Unsuspecting owners in pajamas are pulled to the door late in the evening by dogs on leashes, and certain dogs have beer preferences from which they do not waver. Balto, for example, will drink only cold black Guinness, while a chocolate lab he knows touches nothing but Brooklyn's Pennant Pale Ale.

Despite all this, Section 81-25 of the city's health code prohibits animals from bars or restaurants unless they are service animals. After multiple complaints, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene sends inspectors. Fines range from $200 to $2,000, and permits can be revoked.

"Bar owners should be careful," said Bob Zuckerman, executive director of the New York Nightlife Association, a trade group of bar and club owners. "They really shouldn't be allowing dogs into their bars unless it's for seeing-eye purposes."

Asked about the health regulations, Mr. Connelly shrugged. "It's a really clean bar," he said. "Dogs don't go behind the bar. They know how to behave."

Brooklyn Ale House, 103 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211, (718) 302-981, www.brooklynalehouse.net