NYC Restaurant Shooting: 3 Killed, 8 Wounded

Three people were killed and nine others wounded when up to four gunmen opened fire in a possible gang-related shooting at a Brooklyn hookah lounge around closing time early Sunday, authorities said.

It was the second mass shooting in the city in weeks — occurring after a nut stormed a swanky Midtown skyscraper late last month and shot dead four innocent people before turning the gun on himself.

“I can easily stand here and tell you that we have driven down crime, that we have removed over 2,000 illegal guns off our street,” a grim-faced Mayor Eric Adams told reporters during a briefing on Sunday’s violence and mentioning the other recent mass shooting.

“I can give you those numbers and those stats. But that does not comfort those who are victims of gun violence,” he said.

Cops responded to 911 calls of a shooting inside the Taste of the City Lounge at 903 Franklin Ave. in Crown Heights — less than a half mile from the historic Brooklyn Museum — just before 3:30 a.m., NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the press conference.

The club was packed when the bullets flew, the commish said — with detectives later recovering 42 shell casings from multiple .9mm and .45-cabliber weapons.

The three people killed were men ages 27, 35 and 19, cops said. The teen was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other two died at the hospital, Tisch said.

The shooting was apparently sparked by a dispute between the 19- and 35-year-old — with the older man a suspected member of the Folk Nations gang, sources said.

Cops have grainy video from inside the hookah bar that shows the two men pulling out weapons and firing, then two other men following suit, ending patrons scrambling, sources said.

The 27-year-old fatal victim appeared to be an innocent bystander caught in the cross-fire, sources said.

Tisch said at the briefing that innocent victims were among those shot.

“What we know preliminarily is that there was a dispute inside the crowded club that led to the shooting. We believe that there were up to four shooters involved in this incident,” she said.

“At this time, no one is in custody, and the shooting preliminary appears to be gang-related.”

A gun recovered nearby, around Bedford Avenue and Eastern Parkway, is believed to be tied to the shooting, sources said.

One witness, a 39-year-old man who didn’t want to give his name, said he saw one of the victims get shot dead.

“He’s a regular, he wasn’t doing nothing. Nothing to do with it … He’s just outside the bathroom, hitting a hookah, dead,” the man told The Post.

A friend of the older victim said he poked his head inside the doorway and saw his pal being treated.

“All I heard was what sounded like fireworks,” the witness, RoyJawn Philips, said Sunday. “I didn’t learn it was real shots until I went to check if my friend was ok and saw CPR being performed.

“When I saw the CPR, I knew the sound I heard wasn’t fireworks.”

The nine wounded victims — six men and three women — were taken to local hospitals with what cops said were non-life-threatening injuries.

The oldest injured victim was 61.

“We have the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims seven months into the year we’ve seen on record in the city of New York,” Tisch said. “Something like this is, of course, thank god, an anomaly and it’s a terrible thing that’s happened this morning.”

Cops in hazmat suits were seen going into the club on Sunday morning. Other video, posted on X, showed officers inside the business near a pool of blood and broken glass.

Officers went into a Foodtown grocery store next door to the club and asked for video footage from the store, a worker inside told The Post.

“I’ve been in there. It’s tight in there,” the worker said. “It’s like 12 ft wide, and it goes all the way back, you know it’s long it goes back 30 or 40 yards but it’s tight.

“There are tables on either side and the bar down one side. There’s not much room in there with the bar and the tables,” he said.

Taste of the City Lounge serves American and Caribbean plates with a full bar, hookah, and DJs.

The business, which opened in 2022, was the scene of another shooting in November 2024. There were non-fatal injuries in that shooting.

Many locals said the lounge has been plagued by problems since it opened.

“It’s not surprising. Anyone who says they’re shocked is lying for the cameras,” a woman in her late 40s who lives across the street said, attributing the violence to “gang kids.”

“They’ve been fighting lots of times, all summer. Yelling and screaming at each other. It’s just over and over,” she said.

Another neighbor, who gave his name only as Allen, 66, and lives several doors down from the lounge, said he frequently hears arguments and fights there.

“I hear them cursing and screaming. You can hardly sleep without hearing them yelling. Arguing when they take it outside,” he said.

Locals said the crowd inside the club skews young, with one, who gave her name as Florence, 77, recalling “The other night, kids came running out of there, yelling, screaming … I was shocked. They were so young.”

The super of the building opposite the lounge said it had been different under previous management.

“The guy who owned it before, he was good,” he said. “It was an older crowd, and there really wasn’t much trouble, but then he sold it, and it got bad. Young people yelling every night.”