Left NYC for Fl around 2003. Already the tournament bonanza of the 90s was pretty much dead in the water. What I believe killed them was the fact that the NYC police departments decided to crack down on pool tournament calcuttas, later on that.
I used to play regularly in the weekly tournaments at Bayside Billiards Club (until sold to Slates) on Thursdays, and Whitestone Billiards on Tuesday, until they died, again due to the termination of their calcuttas. (Bear in mind that the BBC and Whitestone tournaments very often had full 64 player brackets and really nice purses and calcuttas, entrants came from as far as Conn. and New Jersey.) Then at Millennium on Weds, also occasionally at Golden Cue, then Leisure Time in Hempstead LI. Never played in one, but Chelsea also had, I believe, a Weds tournament, Amsterdam had one, and another room in Long Island City...I believe Masters, also had a weekly, as well as a nice room in White Plains. There were probably more that I can't recall right now, all handicapped and with very nice prize money, and lots of fun.
One Weds I was signed up to play at Millennium's tournament and just as the calcutta was getting started two or three undercover police came in, everyone knew they were vice and we had already heard that some upset person had recently called the police and reported the Golden Cue tournament calcutta to them, shutting it down and threatening to arrest the director and owner there, so it was anticipated. I believe that Alexandra just started running the tournament and she decided that she would continue with the calcutta carefully. Apparently, and I don't know this factually, the tournaments and calcuttas were perfectly legal in NYC as long as only players and not spectators participated, once non-players' bids were accepted, the law was broken. The undercover officers would go into the rooms and try to bid, once they were allowed to, they would go through their routine threatening to arrest people and close the room. It pretty much destroyed all the tournaments.
Rumor had it that the first room to have the vice officers visit was the Golden Cue, I can't remember the name of the tournament director, maybe Vinny, a shortish, pudgy, really nice Italian guy, was taken outside, placed in a squad car and given a pretty tough time, others as well. That pretty much killed their pretty large weekly tournament along with the business it provided. Again, this was always just rumor, but it spread around pretty well, was that some of the people from the GC then informed the vice police of the other tournaments, especially in Queens, killing them off as well.
Again, just a rumor, but another possible case of pool people killing their own. Sad.
J
