Joint's Role in TV's 'SEX' Goes to Pot
  
 
By:Helen Peterson
Daily News Staff Writer

A Greenwich Village bar famed for its spicy Buffalo wings persuaded HBO's "Sex and the City" yesterday not to portray it as a hot spot for pot.

The owners of Down the Hatch, a popular joint on W. Fourth St., were doing a slow burn over an episode due to air tomorrow night that depicts one of its bartenders peddling marijuana.

Yesterday, they filed a lawsuit to stop HBO from airing the show, unless all references to the bar were taken out.

"We would have loved to have Down the Hatch mentioned in a different light," said Michael Asch, co-owner of the bar and admitted fan of the show.

Asch and partner Mitchell Banchik also were mad that the script made Down the Hatch seem like a place for undesirables and had the show's characters dissing it as a "dump," according to court papers.

In fact, the owners said, the bar attracts an upscale 21- to 30-year-old crowd, including graduate students from Columbia and New York universities.

Bar's Rep Intact

"I felt that we protected our reputation. Down the Hatch is a neighborhood institution," said Banchik.

The suits at HBO decided they didn't see a need to get bogged down in court, however. After hours of negotiations, the producers of "Sex and the City" agreed to leave Down the Hatch on the cutting-room floor.

"The show will not use the name of our clients' business at all," said the pub's attorney Michael Hiller.

An HBO spokesman said, "The show obviously meant no disrespect at all to the owners, and because the bar was uncomfortable with the reference, we changed it."

She said courts routinely find that the airing of controversial topics, even if arguably false, should not be censored.

Originally published on August 2, 2003