(Photos: Angel Chevrestt)
You’d think he was prescribing beer goggles.
A Park Slope eye doctor is offering booze to customers to help them unwind before exams — but not every client is impressed by the nutty hops-tometry.
“I was offered a beer on my first visit,” griped one patient, Mark T., on Yelp. “Seriously, alcohol before an eye exam? And in a medical environment?”
But Dr. Justin Bazan says that after 5 p.m., it’s happy hour.
“Don’t worry. None of the team is drinking! We are not a sterile [hospital],” Bazan wrote in his defense. “We are friendly, helpful and like to have fun! We have beer/wine tastings all the time.
“Heck, if it’s been a rough day and you need something strong, just ask. We got you.”
Bazan, 34, opened Park Slope Eye on Union Street in 2008 and told The Post he has been serving two types of glasses ever since.
“I just put myself in patients’ shoes,” he said. “Everybody except that guy ‘Mark T.’ has loved it.”
Patients are offered tea, snacks and craft brews on arrival. Most finish their libations in the lobby, but Bazan allows unfinished ales in the exam room, too.
One recent patient wanted to get pie-eyed after a hard day and asked for something stronger.
Bazan took out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s — left over from an art show held at the lens shop — and poured him Jack and Coke.
“The guy had a cocktail instead of a beer,” Bazan said. “He had three of them, actually.”
Several Yelp users gush about sipping before and after their afternoon exams.
Ingrid Alvarez told The Post the doc “definitely attracts a younger, contemporary crowd.”
Bazan himself, with a shaved head and stubble on his cheeks, is casually dressed in a button-down shirt and dark jeans.
“I appreciated being offered a drink,” said Alvarez, a Staten Island resident and hip-hop dance instructor. “I said, ‘How about a greyhound?’ I was just kind of joking . . . and he said, ‘No, I can make that for you.’
“It was a nice to go get my eyes checked and take a load off.”
Bazan, a 2004 SUNY College of Optometry grad, says there hasn’t been a backlash, and that one drink won’t affect examinations.
A spokeswoman for the state Office of the Professions said there are no rules that would bar an optometrist from serving a patient an alcoholic beverage.
Still, the man of vision might be breaking State Liquor Authority laws. An SLA spokesman said businesses with a capacity of 20 or more need a liquor license — even if they’re not selling drinks.
“We’ve had a few people hang out after an exam and say, ‘That beer was delicious. Can I have another one?’ ” Bazan said. “It’s rare that anybody asks for one more.
“The only reason I would be worried is if the doctor was drinking — and that certainly is not the case.”