Former Bar Owner Refuses To Leave UES Condo After Foreclosure: Report

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side man who was previously accused of sexual assault at the East Village bar he owned now refuses to leave his apartment after it was foreclosed in 2022, according to a new report in Crain's New York Business.

The homeowner, Frank Steo, has not allowed his Upper East Side apartment's buyer access to the apartment and is still living there with his family, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court that was obtained by the outlet.

The apartment is located at 404 East 79th Street and was sold to an investor for $397,000 at a June 2022 auction, Crain's reported. Finally, in September 2023, the new owner served Steo a legal notice demanding he leave the apartment, according to Crain's.

However, according to the lawsuit, the "Defendants refused to vacate the premises, and [the] plaintiff is unwillingly funding defendants' lifestyle of living for free in a property they do not own, and have no rights to."

Steo had not yet filed a legal response in the case as of Monday, according to Crain's.

Steo's dive bar, called Bar None, faced financial trouble for years before it was seized by the city and boarded up in 2022, according to multiple reports. Even before the pandemic struck the city in 2020, the bar had been failing to keep up with tax and rent payments, Crain's reported.

The bar was also shrouded in controversy of another kind. According to a 2019 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint which was reviewed by NY Daily News, punk rock performance artist and Bar None bartender Kaitlin Day — in her late 20s at the time — said she was sexually assaulted by Steo's cousin while working and that Steo let his friends use the bar's basement as a crack den.

Opened in the early 1990s, Bar None was a beer and cocktail hangout for fans of the Minnesota Vikings, the New Orleans Saints, and the Ohio State Buckeyes.