Only a handful of restaurants were given permits to open outdoor dining in time for the new season, which is fast approaching on April 1, the NYC comptroller’s office said on Thursday.
The announcement comes just three days after NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) officials said they are reviewing nearly 4,000 applications for the two kinds of permits available—roadway and sidewalk cafe licenses—before the first day of the season.
But out of those thousands of applications, only 40 restaurants received permits to go head with al fresco dining, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander said.
He added that his office has to receive the permits because it is required by law as part of the licensing process.
“New York City’s restaurant scene survived and flourished because of outdoor dining—and yet City Hall’s kitchen is backed up with permits, leaving lots of restaurants out in the cold,” Lander said. “Spring is almost here, and restaurant owners are running out of time to design new outdoor seating and obtain liquor licenses. The Department of Transportation needs to stop ticket stacking and start sending their permits to this office.”
Time is especially important this year because restaurant owners must comply with new outdoor dining regulations that include new barriers and floors for their structures to help ensure safety and cleanliness.
But Vincent Barone, a spokesperson for the DOT, said the agency has reviewed all the roadway applications it has received so far. He also said the permits must undergo a lengthy approval process with multiple steps that the NYC Council requires.
The process includes DOT’s initial review of the application before it is sent to the local community board. Public hearings are also required for roadway setups and some sidewalk setups. The comptroller’s office is the last step in the process before the DOT can issue a license.
“We are proud that outdoor dining is now a permanent part of our city’s streetscape and have reviewed every roadway application we have received,” Barone said. “As required by the law passed by the city council, reviews are underway by community boards, council members, and the comptroller. The comptroller should take up his concerns with the city council.”
But the city council threw the holdup back on DOT, saying “the implementing agency” still controls details of the application process and operations through rulemaking.
“The mayoral administration insisted that the DOT be the agency to operate the program despite the council’s skepticism about the agency and preference for the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which historically handled applications of this kind,” said a city council spokesperson.
She added that council members will also be overseeing the DOT’s implementation of the program.
“Many of the complaints we’ve seen relate to issues that can be addressed through DOT’s control of rulemaking and more effective implementation, and we urge DOT to improve its operations,” the spokesperson said. “The council will conduct oversight of the agency’s implementation of this program to gain greater clarity.”
Barone added that many restaurant owners with roadway applications stuck in the approval process will get conditional approval to operate in the spring.
In some cases, restaurants–-about one-third of applications-–are “incomplete” and require additional information, which Barone said will determine how quickly they will get through the approval process.
NYC outdoor dining during the pandemic
Many restaurant owners said outdoor dining was a lifeline for their businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to an analysis from the comptroller’s office, at its peak, outdoor dining created 11,720 jobs, resulting in $373 million of total annual wages, and generated $9.6 million annual income tax to the city.
Charlotta Janssen, who owns French restaurant and bar Chez Oskar in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said she put in an application for sidewalk dining in July but has not heard back yet about its status. She also said many restaurants like hers stayed afloat during the pandemic because of outdoor dining.
“We all survived because of it. The only reason we made it through COVID is because we had outdoor dining,” she said. “I’m glad the comptroller is shedding light on this.”
Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, which represents restaurants and other dining establishments throughout the city, said the outdoor dining application process should be streamlined.
“While the Dining Out NYC program is certainly an improvement over the pre-pandemic sidewalk café law, we’ve come to understand why too few restaurants have applied and been approved,” he said. “Now is the perfect time for the city to enact thoughtful reforms to outdoor dining that further streamline the application process, support high-quality winter enclosures, allow for year-round roadway cafés, among other modifications. These changes would remove barriers for small businesses and help foster a thriving outdoor dining scene.”
