Emily Brodrick
On August 16th, Mayor Eric Adams signed Introduction 31-C into law, unveiling Dining Out NYC, the city’s new permanent outdoor dining program. Using what was learned from Open Restaurants, NYC’s temporary outdoor dining program initiated as an emergency response to COVID-19, Dining Out NYC aims to work towards continued economic growth and job development in the restaurant industry while responding to the quality-of-life issues residents have been dealing with during the temporary program.
Under Dining Out NYC, which will begin taking effect next year, restaurants with permits will be able to have dining sheds up from April to November, and sidewalk dining all year round. Restaurants currently participating in the Open Restaurants program will be able to keep using their current outdoor dining equipment until November 2024, or until their Dining Out NYC permit application is accepted or denied.
For restaurant owners and employees, outdoor dining has been vital over the past four years. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 12,000 restaurants were able to stay open due to the Open Restaurant program, relieving the economic stress for many businesses while keeping the City’s economy afloat,” said Edwin Molina, Deputy Cheif of Staff for NYC City Council Member Marjorie Velásquez, who sponsored the new, permanent program. Open Restaurants also saved 100,000 jobs during the height of COVID-19 Molina said.
More outdoor dining has also had a positive effect on districts with majority-non-white populations and low-income households. A report from December 2022 out of NYU Wagner found that both of these communities nearly “doubled their shares of New York City’s outdoor dining establishments under Open Restaurants.” These districts now hold, respectively, 41% and 31% of the restaurants with outdoor dining in the city said the report by Dominic T. Sonkowski and Mitchell L. Moss. Previously, a long, bureaucratic process and prohibitive fees kept outdoor dining limited to a few wealthy neighborhoods in Manhattan.
On the downside, the environmental consequences have been devastating for many NYC locals, said Michael H. Sussman, a civil rights attorney who has been representing residents in multiple lawsuits against the city. Noise, street and sidewalk congestion, abnormally high levels of trash piling up, and rats and homeless populations taking refuge in the sheds, have all been negative impacts of the Open Restaurants program that residents have been attempting to get the city to respond to. But these residents have continually felt their complaints falling on deaf ears said Sussman.
Sussman said the city never properly reviewed the environmental impacts of outdoor dining on the lives of city residents, which he said is illegal. This was the case brought for the first lawsuit.
When the previous Mayor Bill de Blasio indefinitely extended the Open Restaurants program in September 2020, (after initially saying the program would end on Labor Day,) Sussman said the city was legally required to perform a City Environmental Quality Review. In May of 2021, following the review, the city declared that the outdoor dining was having “no negative impact, what they called ‘no significant environmental impacts.’ Which is absurd,” he said.
After a short case in which the residents won, an appeal by the city, and a second, more lengthy suit, won again by residents, the city grandfathered Open Restaurants into its new Dining Out NYC program less than two weeks after the second judge’s ruling.
According to Molina though, Dining Out NYC will be a more robust and refined outdoor dining program, which has considered many perspectives. “We listened to what the restaurant community had to say, we talked with small business owners and consumers alike, and we created a bill that reflects their needs,” Molina said.
Molina also said that outdoor dining has been a benefit to visitors and residents alike. During COVID-19, Open Restaurants allowed them both “to socialize safely over a great meal while stimulating our struggling economy and revitalizing our barren streetscape.” The new program will allow “more New Yorkers to enjoy the pleasures of outdoor dining,” he said.
David Gruber, a Greenwich Village resident and former CB2 chair said the dining sheds are more for visitors than locals, however, and that these visitors especially gravitate towards areas like the Village, where there are many more outdoor dining areas than in other, less popular destinations in the city, said Gruber.
“In a city of 9 million people, they have one regulation. One size fits all. So it's the same for all those other non-destination places,” he said. Gruber, one of the residents working with Sussaman, added that he wasn’t against outdoor dining but that the Village has been overwhelmed by it.
“I'm not against outdoor dining. I'm not against the people having tables that go in at night. I need regulations that they close early in an R zone. I need the streets swept. I need not to have rats run all over after people go back to East Hampton. And they say, ‘Oh, we had such a fabulous time in the Village. They’ve got all these fun restaurants and we got nice drinks. It's so much fun.’ You know, but I live here, and it's not so much fun,” he said.
Many locals do like the dining sheds though, including another Village resident Mykel Board, who has been hosting his weekly Drink Club in the dining shed of Peculiar Pub, located in the Village, since the pandemic.
“The first reason I like the sheds is because it's quiet. The second reason I like the sheds is because it's outside. You can people-watch,” said Board. He also said it’s easier to meet people outside because it’s more casual and organic than being inside a loud bar.
Zareen Erskine, another Drink Club member from China Town said she loves the dining sheds. Having just moved to the city a year ago, the shed at the Peculiar Pub has been a place to build new friendships in NYC. She said “I feel like it's such a great extension of a restaurant. Restaurants are typically too small to begin with, so it's just a great solution to an already compact city.”
Another member, Edward Walters said outdoor dining is easier for him and his partner, George, who is 85 and uses a wheelchair. Outdoor dining areas often don’t have doors or stairs, which can be a hindrance for people with limited mobility.
Still, not all the members of Drink Club were entirely enthusiastic about outdoor dining. Neil Eddinger said he felt dining sheds were overall hurting NYC streets. “I like this one for the people, but in general I don’t think they’re good for the city. I think they’re kind of in the way. I feel sorry for the garbage trucks and the busses,” he said.
Currently, Dining Out NYC’s proposed rules, created in partnership with DOT and other agencies, are under public review until November 20th. Making outdoor dining more affordable and less bureaucratically prohibitive for restaurants, as well as open-air, easily-broken-down dining shed design requirements are examples of the proposed rules.
Meanwhile, a fundraiser was held on October 23rd at a private residence in Greenwich Village to raise money for a third attempt by residents to sue the city for the Open Restaurants program. Gruber and others are preparing to file the lawsuit this month, with Sussman representing them once again.