{"id":189890,"date":"2026-04-08T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:59:11","slug":"nyc-freezes-event-permits-during-world-cup-america250-angering-local-business-districts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189890\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC freezes event permits during World Cup, America250, angering local business districts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city is denying event permits for six weeks around the upcoming FIFA World Cup soccer games<\/a> and America\u2019s 250th anniversary, turning a summer of opportunity into a summer of missed opportunities for event planners and city business improvement districts hoping to cash in on some of the big-ticket events, the Daily News has learned.<\/p>\n

City officials are denying any new permit requests for events in city parks<\/a>, as well as any large-scale events in Times Square and other gathering points throughout the Big Apple, between June 11 and July 19, claiming that the NYPD and other city agencies will not be able to handle the large crowds the events would bring.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani and several agencies, including the Parks Department and the NYPD, made the decision \u201cto ensure the efficient deployment of police resources and public safety during the busy summer 2026 season,\u201d the Parks Department said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Traditional events and parades that have taken place in the city over the last few years will go on as scheduled, city officials said.<\/p>\n

But the moratorium on new events is causing headaches for city business improvement districts<\/a>, or BIDs, who were hoping to hold events linked to the World Cup games and America\u2019s 250th anniversary, but are being told they cannot.<\/p>\n

The latest casualty is the red, white and blue ball drop in Times Square slated for July 3. With the mortarium in place, the ball will be lowered at One Times Square without onlookers crowding the pedestrian plazas, organizers said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there will not be a public event in the Times Square plazas, we are working through standard coordination with city partners and look forward to sharing additional details soon,\u201d One Times Square and America250 said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

\"FILEFILE – NYPD police officers are pictured outside the Armed Forces recruitment center in New York’s Times Square in this file photo. (AP Photo\/Mary Altaffer)<\/p>\n

The ball drop, which will be similar to the one on New Year\u2019s Eve, will be broadcast live, organizers said.<\/p>\n

Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance BID, said he was \u201cdisappointed we will not have a public event for America250.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is this will be an amazing summer in Times Square and in New York City with plenty to do,\u201d Harris said. \u201cAll events are not created equal, and we will continue to try and work with the city to get approvals not only for legacy events but for new and exciting events that require minimal or no city resources or events that can be managed safely with private resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

At an unrelated press conference at the Prospect Park Zoo Wednesday, Mayor Mamdani said the World Cup \u201cis going to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it also demands is that we are prepared for it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so we are taking the steps to ensure that we have the requisite public-sector capacity to deal with the number of events that will be a part of that World Cup.\u201d He added that the city is trying to shift events slated to occur during the soccer tournament to other times, so police resources aren\u2019t drained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking to find alternative dates to ensure that the city can not just put on an event at this scale, but that it sets an excellent level of quality,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

If event permits for the weeks flagged by the city haven\u2019t been denied outright, they\u2019ve been delayed for so long that event planners have pulled out, taking their events \u2014 and their business \u2014 to other cities, BID leaders said.<\/p>\n

Jeffery LeFrancois, the executive director of the Meatpacking District Management Association<\/a>, knows of at least six events that have decided to move to Philadelphia, San Francisco and other large cities because of the denials and delays from City Hall.<\/p>\n

As a result, both the city and local community organizations are losing out on revenue that could come from brands hoping to hold events and World Cup-related activations, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(FIFA and America250) aren\u2019t New York City-centric events \u2014 this is all of North America, so New York can easily lose out,\u201d LeFrancois said. He added he doesn\u2019t understand why the city is cracking down so hard on event permits \u2014 which include smaller celebrations that don\u2019t require a police presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on the size and scale, a lot of these events don\u2019t even need city resources,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd a blanket \u2018Wait and see\u2019 from the city isn\u2019t helping anybody. We need to be able to make decisions. There are brands that have money to spend on permits for events and want to leverage the World Cup, but they\u2019re not getting approved here, so that money ends up going elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

BID groups earn a fair chunk of their capital to fund private security, cleaning crews, landscapers and florists for their pedestrian plazas through these summertime events, organizers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese BIDs can lose up to $1 million in fees\u201d without these events, said a source with knowledge of the permitting process who wished not to be named. Even small events, such as outdoor viewing parties where people can watch a FIFA game on a jumbo screen in pedestrian areas, are either being denied or delayed, the source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few of these events require a police presence,\u201d the source said. \u201cNot even allowing a permit for something like that, how can that be logical?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD officers patrol Central Park on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)<\/p>\n

A city source, however, said that smaller events like watch parties have not been denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all still getting planned out,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

The NYPD referred all inquiries to the Parks Department statement about the permit freeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, New York City will be hosting events associated with the FIFA World Cup from June 11 through July 19, which also overlaps with planned celebrations for the United States\u2019 250th anniversary from July 1 through July 9,\u201d the statement read. \u201cThe events associated with the FIFA World Cup and the United States\u2019 250th anniversary will require significant realignment and deployment of city personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only other time the city quashes permit requests is during the United Nations General Assembly, a weeklong annual event in September that involves major street closures and police resources being heavily used to protect dignitaries from around the globe.<\/p>\n

A police source with knowledge of the upcoming events described the World Cup games and America250 as \u201cUNGA on steroids\u201d that will need significant police resources.<\/p>\n

\"AA FIFA Club World Cup Final Ball visual is displayed against the Manhattan skyline by 1500 drones in a FIFA drone show ahead of the Club World Cup Final on July 11, 2025 in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. (Photo by Dan Mullan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The 39-day stretch will also include the city\u2019s annual Pride March and celebrations and Sail4th250<\/a> \u2014 a massive flotilla of tall ships that will sail down the East River to coincide with the country\u2019s Semiquincentennial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is three major events with five times the amount of people than UNGA,\u201d the source said, referring to the World Cup, America250 and Pride.<\/p>\n

While the World Cup games will be held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, several World Cup kickoff events and celebrations will be held in New York, officials said.<\/p>\n

So far, the city isn\u2019t seeing the economic boon to the tourism economy it expected from the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, hotel associations said they\u2019re not seeing a significant increase in demand around the event between surging hotel prices and a dip in international tourism in part due to uncertainty around Trump.<\/p>\n

Vijay Dandapani, CEO and president of the Hotel Association of New York, said hotel booking are down from last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Hall can play a critical role in turning the tide and lifting our local economy by supporting the industry rather than imposing additional cost increases,\u201d Dandapani said. \u201cWe agree with the Mayor that it is critical New York captures the full economic benefits of this once-in-a-generation event while also protecting the hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers who rely on a strong and thriving hotel sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

LeFrancois said all of these permitted events could have been better organized so that city resources could be better distributed \u2014 and that the city had plenty of time to plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t hear that the World Cup was happening last week. We\u2019ve known it\u2019s been coming to North America since 2018,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve also known that the 250th anniversary of Independence Day would be this year and Pride parades all happen at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is silly,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing is new and the city has been so good at walking and chewing gum at the same time, there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FILEFILE – An electronic billboard displays a FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 soccer logo, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019, in New York’s Times Square. (AP Photo\/Mary Altaffer)<\/p>\n

Harris, a retired NYPD inspector, said he knows \u201cpublic safety is paramount in our streets and public spaces,\u201d but he hopes the city and its BIDs can find some kind of common ground as these events draw closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is many events can and have been safely managed with private resources,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWe hope to work with the city to strike a balance and quickly identify those new events that can safely happen in our iconic public spaces as we welcome millions of soccer fans, New Yorkers and other visitors this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city is denying event permits for six weeks around the upcoming FIFA World Cup soccer games and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,56,63,261,65,64,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-189890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-city","9":"tag-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-county","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-nyc-crime","20":"tag-nyc-headlines","21":"tag-nyc-news","22":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}