Kemistry Owner Arrested for Allegedly Selling Marijuana in March

One of the Kemistry bar and lounge owners was arrested in March after police found him “trading ‘large plastic bags’ full of pot for money,” according to DNAinfo.

Leonard Bartletto was arrested March 19 on the Lower East Side and charged with misdemeanor criminal sale of marijuana. According to a letter from Kemistry’s attorney Jerome Sussman, Bartletto did not divulge his arrest to Kemistry’s other owner, James Brown. 

Sussman’s letter said the arrest was “the straw that broke [the] camel’s back” and stated that Brown will buy out Bartletto’s shares in Kemistry, a restaurant-bar set to open at 260 Flatbush Ave.

The bar has seen opposition from locals who are worried about the noise that the club – which plans to have bottle service and live music – will bring to the neighborhood, as Patch previously reported.

“I think the issue is the fitness and character of the applicant [James Brown],” said Attorney Peter Adelman of Prospect Place Neighbors, a group that has been opposed to Kemistry’s opening. “I honestly don’t know which is worse, that he didn’t know about his partner's criminal history, or that he knew about it and went forward with this application anyhow.”