Village Sun: Lobbyists push bills to flood us with liquor licenses. . .
April 24, 2024
The restaurant-liquor industrial complex is on a roll. Unless they are stopped, they’re going to roll right over our neighborhoods. For years, the “hospitality sector” has wanted less interference from the “community” and more freedom to sell cocktails on the sidewalk, the roadway, in the cellar and on the rooftop. And their wishes are coming true.
Village Sun: Dining in the gutter — is it really here to stay?
July 31, 2023
The unsightly, unsanitary tangle of street sheds called “Outdoor Dining” may be here to stay if Mayor Adams has his way. The spectacle of New York’s fine avenues, historic streets and unique neighborhoods reduced to a clutter of gutter dining sheds is an embarrassment to our once-great city.
Village Sun: Judge rules for residents in Open Restaurants case. Says enviro impact review needed.
March 24, 2022
Holy shed!
Calling New York City’s actions “arbitary and capricious,” a state Supreme Court justice has ordered that a complete environmental review must be done for the city’s contentious Open Restaurants program.
Bowery Boogie: City Council, Vote No on the Open Restaurants Text Amendments! [Op-Ed from Diem Boyd]
February 24, 2022
There is Better Way for Our Public Streets Than Getting In Bed With the NYC Hospitality Alliance. We have been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amuck, and flat out deceived. The fight in the street is not about car parking versus eating and drinking sheds. That is the distraction to make us look away while our public lands are given away.
Village Sun: Council removes DOT as lead agency for Open Restaurants
February 18, 2022
So what exactly is on the menu now for Open Restaurants — and, for that matter, for stressed-out Downtowners driven to distraction by the droves of “emergency” roadway dining sheds? Basically, a lot is currently in the works and still unsettled.
NY Post: N.Y.C. Protesters rally against outdoor dining sheds
February 2, 2022
Nearly 100 protesters rallied against outdoor dining sheds in Greenwich Village on Saturday, demanding the city remove the shanties they say have made their lives miserable. . . .
NY Times: N.Y.C. Rats. They’re in the Park, on Your Block, and Even at Your Table
November 5, 2021
Reported rat sightings, health inspections finding evidence of rat activity and cases of a disease spread via rat urine are all up amid the pandemic. . . .
NY Times: Dining Sheds Saved N.Y.C. Could They Destroy It?
November 5, 2021
The Lower East Side has turned into an all-night fraternity party, locals say, and small businesses are asking for help. . . .
Village Sun: “Time to bring rationality back.” Attorney says Open Restaurants program needs proper environmental review.
October 22, 2021
“Expanding the Open Restaurants program without a proper environmental review is “contrary to law,” the attorney on a lawsuit seeking to block City Hall’s imperious move thundered at a press conference Thursday morning.
“Attorney Michael Sussman has been retained by a group of nearly two dozen residents, spanning from Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen to the East Village, Lower East Side and Williamsburg, who say their quality of life has been wrecked by the explosion of roadway dining sheds on their streets.
Real Deal: Check please! Locals demand city undo outdoor dining
November 1, 2021
“Kathy Arntzen and her husband have lived in a condo on Cornelia Street for 32 years. But during the pandemic, the character of her sleepy Greenwich Village block has fundamentally changed.
“Seven restaurant sheds have popped up, along with a plethora of outdoor cafe seating, all on Arntzen’s 450-foot-long street.”
NY Post: NYC locals sue to block permanent expanded outdoor dining
October 19, 2021
“Stick a fork in it, they’re done.
“A group of Big Apple residents has filed suit against the city to try to prevent outdoor street dining expanded during the pandemic from becoming permanent — arguing the al fresco set-ups are quality-of-life flops.”
Crain’s : Rats, noise and garbage threaten outdoor dining's future
October 8, 2021
“Residents are forming in opposition to the popular program to preserve their prepandemic peace
“Outside Kyle Sklerov’s bedroom on Perry Street in the West Village, diners eat, drink and yell day and night.
“We live inside a restaurant now,” Sklerov said, adding that in early 2020, when he moved in, the block was quiet. His ground-floor, street-facing apartment is just 400 square feet, he said —the size of a two-car garage in the suburbs—and he and his wife have nowhere to get away from it all.
WestView : Open Restaurants : Assault on Quality of Life
August 2, 2021
“Once upon a time, city residents worked with their city government to protect the quality of life for all: noise ordinances were developed to limit the volume and hours of loud crowds, loud music, and loud work sites; restaurants were required to limit sound pollution with closed windows and doors if there was inside music; sidewalks were required to be swept or washed regularly, and curbsides got regular twice-weekly street-cleaning with machines that scrub gutters; sidewalks were generally reserved for pedestrians, with more accommodations for people with disabilities.
“In March 2020, all that changed with the COVID pandemic.”
NY Post: Reports of restaurants’ impending death are much exaggerated
August 1, 2021
Newly released data shows that restaurants continued to outcompete for available retail space throughout the pandemic.
According to the NY Post, “In 2020, F&B [food and beverage] leases comprised 28.6 percent of all retail deals in terms of number of locations, compared with 17.6 percent for runner-up apparel. The F&B square footage of 242,713 square feet handily bested 179,076 for apparel uses.”
Open Letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer
July 23, 2021
The emergency outdoor dining program should not be made permanent. It was created with scant democratic process. And it permanently privatizes huge swathes of public land in the interest of just one industry.
Such a privatization of public property is not only profoundly undemocratic – it will change the nature of our neighborhoods.
News: DCP finally shows its hand
June 21, 2021
Presenting to the City Commissioners, the Department of City Planning [DCP] revealed what it has in mind for permanent outdoor dining — 8,000 miles of NYC streets and ~12,000 miles of sidewalks permanently available for restaurant sprawl; no geographic restrictions; outdoor bars can close at 1:00 a.m. weekends; roadway dining permitted summer AND winter using “temporary” [undefined] structures; outdoor heating is allowed; and there’ll be “a little bit of a lighter touch on enforcement.”
June Update
In May, the Department of City Planning [DCP] and the Department of Transportation [DOT] had two “invitation-only” briefings to restaurant owners and the Hospitality Alliance on how they propose to make the Outdoor Dining program permanent.
Instagram Feed
![After 2.5 years, is DOT finally enforcing Open Restaurants outdoor dining rules ... as in actually "open" and "outdoors"? We're stunned. @ebottcher
[Swipe for pic of current setup.]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/606c9a0d5c6be27eec933ed6/1669848519374-WM4A1A7HWNYBM3LMWENW/image-asset.jpeg)
