Today, Nov. 29, is the end of the road for roadway dining as we knew it in New York City. This is a mistake; the City Council, which regularized the COVID-era program, overregulated the outdoor eateries and needs to go back to the drawing board.
The repurposing of curbside space from car storage into places for people to sit, eat and enjoy themselves was a real step forward for neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.
Letting restaurants claim the space right outside their storefronts and build essentially whatever structure they wanted, was a tremendous addition to the streetscape. It made many corridors livelier and more engaging. It allowed cafes and diners, the lifeblood of so many commercial strips, serve and hire more people and survive through their toughest stretch.
But yes, everything’s always complicated. It had problems. Chief among them? Sheds, while sometimes terrific, were often ugly and left unattended, some attracted rats; some weren’t accessible to people in wheelchairs; permission was one-size-fits-all, allowing no smart distinctions to be made in this endlessly diverse city; and the space was entirely free, when a modest fee would’ve been reasonable to underwrite the commercial use of public space.
The challenge, as often, was to throw the bathwater down the sewer grate and let the baby sit at a table strapped into a highchair.
In negotiations with the mayor the City Council made too many modifications. The most fateful mistake was a new requirement that outdoor dining setups be disassembled for the increasingly warm winter months and rebuilt every spring. In a city with precious little place to store anything, that brought with it prohibitively high costs.
That wasn’t the only error. Restaurants looking to add outdoor dining now have too many hoops to jump through, including a role for Community Boards to review applications. Before there was far too little oversight. Now there’s too much.
The results are being felt now. Though it’s almost December, we still have our share of nice-weather days when diners would be more than happy to plunk down al fresco. Nevertheless, we’re in the midst of a huge shrinkage of outdoor dining. There were as many as 8,000 sheds at the height of the pandemic; just 1,600 restaurants have applied for sidewalk-only seating, around 740 for roadway-only, and nearly 700 for both.
Cars will gain a few thousand parking spaces across the city — but look at what we’re losing.
The Council should keep in place the design improvements, which make sheds more attractive and accessible to all, but allow structures to stay in place through the winter months. While there should be some role for community review, the default assumption should be that outdoor dining is permitted barring a meaningful, reasonable objective.
Interestingly, while New York, America’s most densely settled city, has made a sharp turn away from outdoor dining, New Jersey has ensconced the program. This week, Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law a bill allowing restaurants with temporary structures to apply for them to be permanent, without any seasonal restrictions. Dare we say we should follow the lead of our congestion-pricing-hating cousins across the Hudson?
Legislative change isn’t a one-way street. When ill effects are felt in the real world, recalibration is in order. Send New York City’s outdoor dining “fix” back to the chef. It’s underdone.