NYC Council considers making outdoor dining seasonal – The Ticker
The New York City Council is finalizing a bill that would allow restaurants to have seasonal outdoor dining as the city experiences an increase in permit requests from eateries across the five boroughs.
The news comes almost a year after New York City Mayor Eric Adams proposed the creation of outdoor restaurants. He released a plan that highlighted active outdoor sheds in the city’s “Open Restaurants” programs in August 2022. The plan’s purpose was to shut down sheds from dining places that have closed.
In a statement from August 2022, Adams discussed the removal of abandoned sheds while reminding New York City residents of the positive effects that outdoor dining has done for the city’s economy.
“Outdoor dining has transformed New York City and saved 100,000 jobs during the pandemic, but we cannot allow abandoned dining sheds to litter our streets,” Adams said. “These deserted dining sheds have become eyesores for neighbors and havens for rats, and we are going to tear them down.”
Andrew Rigie is the Executive Director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, a nonprofit organization that represents 24,000 restaurants. He told NBC News that breaking down and later rebuilding dining sheds would come at a cost for some eateries.
