{"id":320821,"date":"2026-08-13T23:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320821\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T23:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:22:09","slug":"nycs-roadway-hogging-menace-is-back-with-a-vengeance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320821\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC\u2019s roadway-hogging menace is back with a vengeance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when we\u00a0thought that New York City\u2019s year-round, roadway-hogging, vermin- and drug addict-welcoming\u00a0outdoor dining sheds were toast<\/a>, the City Council brought them back on Thursday. The\u00a0legislators swear the monstrosities will\u00a0smell better than they did before.<\/p>\n

Sure \u2014 the body that also voted to approve an \u201cofficial\u201d flag for Staten Island<\/a> knows what\u2019s best for all the boroughs\u2019 eating habits.<\/p>\n

The Council on Thursday approved four separate bills to allow 12-month dining structures<\/a> on city streets. Current rules requiring them to be taken down from December through March, and design rules to make them easier on the eyes, are chopped liver.<\/p>\n

The Council on Thursday approved four separate bills to allow 12-month dining structures on city streets. Current rules requiring them to be taken down from December through March, and design rules to make them easier on the eyes, are chopped liver. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

Council speaker Julie Menin is the rare sane voice in what passes for municipal government under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But Menin, who strongly endorsed the bills, is out to lunch this time.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the restaurant industry is tickled pink. One Upper West Side bistro owner told the New York Times the new law was \u201ca whole new ballgame for restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sure is. What\u2019s an easier\u00a0game\u00a0for owners than adding seats at $5 per square foot in outer-borough neighborhoods where rent goes for $150 per square foot? Or $25 per square foot in mid-Manhattan, where an indoor lease costs up to $500 per square foot?<\/p>\n

New fines\u00a0to make owners clean up their acts won\u2019t cost them\u00a0more than a pittance \u2014 if they\u2019re enforced at all. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York Hospitality Alliance, called the new rules \u201ccritically important reforms.\u201d Why wouldn\u2019t he? Rigie is an advocate for restaurant\u00a0owners, a job he does very well.<\/p>\n

But what about the rest of us 8.5 million New Yorkers?<\/p>\n

The outdoor structures that sprang up in the summer of 2020 were lifesavers for the pandemic-battered restaurant industry. They gave locked-down New Yorkers a way to finally get out of \u00a0their apartments.<\/p>\n

But they outlived their usefulness by the end of that year when the infection rate fell to near-zero. Yet they continued to multiply, eventually clogging streets with up to 13,000 legal and illegal structures.<\/p>\n

Another bill prohibits outdoor cafes from being used for anything other than serving customers, such as for storage. But what else will owners do with them in the depths of winter when no one in a right mind wants to forego a cozy dining room for a poorly heated roadway shed? Michael Nagle for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u00a0A friend who owns an Italian place in Midtown tore his mid-block shed down in 2021. The final straw came\u00a0when he found a homeless couple feasting not on antipasti but on each other, just yards from the restaurant entrance.<\/p>\n

New fines\u00a0to make owners clean up their acts won\u2019t cost them\u00a0more than a pittance \u2014 if they\u2019re enforced at all. One requires owners \u201cto keep roadway and sidewalk cafes clean [and] free of trash, vermin and graffiti, with a first violation $200 and subsequent ones $500,\u201d according to Council spokesman Henry Robins.<\/p>\n

Wow, $200! Less than the cost of a Restaurant Week meal for two with drinks and a tip.<\/p>\n

Another bill prohibits outdoor cafes from being used for anything other than serving customers, such as for storage. But what else will owners do with them in the depths of winter when no one in a right mind wants to forego a cozy dining room for a poorly heated roadway shed?<\/p>\n

Admittedly, there were some lovely, well-maintained roadway structures, like at Fresco by Scotto. Brian Zak\/Page Six<\/p>\n

The agency in charge of approving year-round shed permits<\/a> is the Department of Transportation, which will \u201cfinalize rule making and promptly publish update rules,\u201d Robins said.<\/p>\n

Given the DOT\u2019s clout, it\u2019s a wonder it won\u2019t have a say in menus, too. Count on the agency to approve just about every year-round application \u2014 a way for the bike-lane-crazy car-haters to\u00a0permanently remove parking spaces.<\/p>\n

The city should focus instead on the indoor portion of restaurant, where owners are stymied by Con Ed,\u00a0the FDNY and the buildings and health departments. Planned openings run\u00a0months behind schedule thanks to bureaucrats\u2019 tinkering, while owners pay big bucks for rent and staff waiting for something to do.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in for a long winter, but\u00a0we\u2019ll have lots of outdoor cafes to choose from in the next blizzard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when we\u00a0thought that New York City\u2019s year-round, roadway-hogging, vermin- and drug addict-welcoming\u00a0outdoor dining sheds were toast, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[301,57,9,56,63,65,64,35522,821,58],"class_list":["post-320821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city-council","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-outdoor-activity","tag-restaurants","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320821","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=320821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}