Community boards and city lawmakers are leveraging bureaucratic hoops created by Mayor Adams and the Adrienne Adams-led City Council to stop or slow down outdoor dining applications across the city, according to a review by Streetsblog.
At least one application for tables and chairs in Lower Manhattan already faces a vote by the full 51-member Council next week, after the area's pol summoned restaurant owners to City Hall over neighborhood complaints.
Passed by the Council and signed by Mayor Adams in 2023, the city's outdoor dining law created several pathways for outdoor dining opponents to hamstring restaurants and bars that want to set up al fresco — a procedure that now threatens to limit outdoor set-ups to a few wealthy parts of the city.
That would reflect a reversion to the pre-pandemic norm after city officials simplified the process setting up tables on the sidewalk or roadbed in 2020. Crafted under the leadership of Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who just announced a run for mayor, the law not only banned roadway "streeteries" four months per year, but also created an intricate process of public hearings and outside vetoes to serve as a roadblock on the popular outdoor dining concept.
Manhattan's downtown Community Board 2 is relishing the new power, holding meetings stretching more than six hours to pick through applications with the finest of combs — even after Department of Transportation officials already reviewed and approved detailed site plans that each restaurant must submit.
"It’s just unnecessary. I don't know why [CB2] makes it so difficult," said one local restaurateur, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid trouble with the board. "I don't know what’s the purpose of [having] to go through that."
Under the law backed by both of the Adamses, all roadway cafés require a public hearing. Community boards can also trigger hearings for sidewalk seating, which may operate year-round, by recommending denials of applications or asking for significant changes. City Council members can veto any sidewalk seating request.
These potential roadblocks add costs and time for eateries already running on razor-thin margins, merchants told Streetsblog. They also undo many of the gains of the Covid-era program by mimicking the steps that existed under the very restrictive pre-pandemic scheme, which was limited to the sidewalk and was unpopular with restaurateurs.
One outdoor dining supporter slammed the "massive overreach" by the unelected community boards — which tend to be whiter and wealthier than the residents of the neighborhoods — and called on the Council to reform the process so outdoor dining can thrive.
"What was the point of even passing the outdoor dining bill if it can be dismantled by this type of interference?" said Jackson Chabot, director of Advocacy and Organizing at Open Plans, which shares a parent organization with Streetsblog.
"This is obviously just one of many outdoor dining issues that have pushed the program to the brink of extinction, and it’s the last thing a beleaguered program needs."
The rules created by the new law reflect a stark turnaround from the pandemic-era program, which allowed restaurants to set up on the sidewalk and in the street by simply filling out a form. That helped grow the city's outdoor dining from around 1,000 participants before the pandemic to more than 12,000 overall, with as many as 8,000 operating at its peak — including in neighborhoods of the city that never had outside service.
Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez has blamed the "cumbersome" process created by the Council for the apparent shrinkage of outdoor dining: Restaurants can return to the roadway starting on April 1, but Comptroller Brad Lander has raised concerns that just a few dozen applications had reached his desk for review as of the middle of last month. The city has fast-tracked about 800 roadway dining applications — out of 1,400 total — with "conditional approvals," so they can start operating on April 1.
'Painful' hours of meetings
Manhattan CB2, which covers restaurant hotspots like the West Village, NoHo, SoHo, Little Italy and parts of Chinatown, convened a special outdoor dining working group that meets several times a month. The group, led by Vice Chair Valerie De La Rosa, often meets for more than five hours at a time, examining plans late into the night with a fine-toothed comb.
Outdoor dining applicants already submit a list of documents, a detailed site plan with drawings and a lengthy list of specifics to DOT. They also pay annual charges to rent the street or sidewalk and take out insurance. The agency reviews all the applications, before sending them to the corresponding community boards.
But the CB2 working group has taken it upon itself to inspect every plan, cross-reference drawings against decade-old applications from the prior sidewalk café program and measure locations themselves, according to a Streetsblog review of hours of video. The panel reviews technicalities like missing directional arrows and signposts on schematics, and often asks applicants to have plans notarized.
At a meeting in December, members of the working group argued with the owners of SoHo restaurant Roscioli over whether it would seat people on an elevated concrete platform extending from base of the building, since the city's rules require seating be level with the sidewalk.
"This is just part of our building that happens to be outside," argued the Italian eatery's Director of Operations Max Katzenberg during the five-hour session.
"It’s not really how it works," De La Rosa replied. "We’re just going by what we’ve received — platforms are not allowed. No platforms, and that’s from the rules. We’re just applying what the rules are to every application."
The group and the restaurant manager couldn't agree on whether it was in fact a platform or not, so the board members decided to push the application to another public hearing, adding more delays.
Katzenberg did not respond for comment.
One local restaurant owner told Streetsblog that the business shelled out thousands of dollars for an architect's drawing and went through DOT's review — only to face an hours-long public meeting with the working group. The group cannot veto applications; instead, it's leveraged its review authority to slow down applications by forcing businesses through more costly hearings.
"It was painful, it was unnecessary," the owner said. "We learned nothing from that meeting. I don’t know what’s the purpose of that board."
Space to vent
CB2 stands out among others for going above and beyond, according to one lawyer who represents restaurants across the city.
"Community Board 2, definitely, they look into the applications more, see if everyone’s complying with this and that," said the attorney, Michael Kelly.
The panel represents an area where some residents have showed up to meetings protesting outdoor dining with signs like "OUTDOOR DINING IS HOME INVASION" — also it now allows members of the public to speak on each application. That provides a platform for people to vent about the very concept of outdoor dining, rather than provide construction feedback on applications.
In one notable fracas, several residents in Little Italy and Chinatown claimed dining structures pose a fire hazard by making roadways like Mulberry Street too tight for fire trucks — even though there's been curbside set-ups on the streets in question for years.
"Tonight my name is Karen. I’m a very angry, angry woman, so you can call me Karen," said one meeting attendee. "I wanna know how you’d feel if it were your grandparents, let's say, who emigrated to America, lived there, and someone from your family died because a fire truck couldn’t get down the street because you needed to sell a few more plates of lasagna."
Outdoor dining structures must maintain clearance for emergency services, according to the new rules. FDNY can grant waivers on narrower streets like Mulberry as long restaurants reduce their set-up's width to six-and-a-half feet to leave enough space.
Kelly, the lawyer, noted during the "Karen" meeting that the structures at this point aren't anything new — and that when they aren't in place, parked cars occupy the curb instead with the same impact on the width of the street.
"They’ve been doing it for four years, I don’t believe anyone’s died on Mulberry Street," Kelly said. "If the sheds are not there, there’s cars parked on both sides of the street, so they also do take up the road."
“Two of my grandparents did come from Italy and lived over there," he said. "But to reiterate about the six feet, six inches, they [the FDNY] didn’t come up with that number randomly, they came up with that number because it’s the average width of a car."
Another attendee argued against an outdoor dining proposal on Lafayette Street because the restaurant in question wasn't "overflowing" with patrons.
"Honestly, I was a little surprised to see them put an application in for this because there’s always plenty of room inside," said the attendee, Lora Tenenbaum. "This is not an overflowing restaurant, by any means shape or form, so it’s sort of an imposition."
Streetsblog reached out to CB2 for comment. The board's office forwarded the request to De La Rosa, who did not respond.
More streamlined
Other boards streamline their process more than CB2, but still attach strings not laid out by the law. Neighboring Community Board 3 — covering bustling districts like the East Village, the Lower East Side, and Chinatown — only endorses applicants if they sign a list of stipulations. The demands include closing outdoor operations at 10 p.m., two hours earlier than the city law requires.
The board's district manager, Susan Stetzer, justified the additional rules by claiming the downtown area dotted with clubs and late-night haunts is "residential." The board's leverage over the restaurants comes from its advisory role in reviewing and recommending State Liquor Authority license applications.
"We’re a residential community, people sleep above these structures," she said. "Our leverage is with the SLA because they do look at adverse history. All our weight is with the SLA."
On the other hand, Brooklyn Community Board 6 — in Park Slope, Gowanus, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill — takes a hands-off approach.
"I think DOT makes them jump through enough hoops as is, so if they align with DOT, they go through," said its District Manager Mike Racioppo. "Our logic has been, most of these places have already had outdoor dining."
Council veto
City Council members can hobble sidewalk applications by calling them up for a vote, where the Council tends to defer to the local lawmaker.
That could be the fate for one bar in the "Dimes Square" area, Le Dive on Canal Street, which some locals want banned from setting up on the foot path, after the neighborhood's council member triggered a hearing to channel residents' complaints.
"Le Dive has demonstrated a continuous disregard for sidewalk cafe regulation, and at this time cannot be trusted to be a good steward of this program and must be held accountable," Council Member Christopher Marte told the Council's Land Use Committee last week.
Marte cited complaints from residents of loud music, blocking the pedestrian right of way, and smoking. He claimed that the loss of the sidewalk seats would have a relatively little impact on the business, since it could still apply for roadway dining and benefit from extra seating when Canal Street's car-free "open street" is in effect. The restaurant's owners and their attorney all but begged the lawmaker to find a compromise at the Feb. 24 committee meeting, saying the removal of the extra seating could cost jobs.
"Three to four employees are subject to losing their jobs without the sidewalk cafe, so it’s not completely a sort of academic exercise," said the restaurant's attorney, Max Bookman. "There are real economic consequences for not having the sidewalk cafe."
The Council's vote came as a surprise to the restaurant's owners after Community Board 3 backed their application, Bookman added. Le Dive tried to rally supporters in the days before the hearing to come out and back its case.
A dozen or so people lined up to testify. One speaker, Sandy Ley, said the crowds of hipsters on Canal scared her babysitters from coming to the area.
"It’s gotten so bad on Canal Street that I’ve been rejected by babysitters who say they want to avoid the area," Ley said. "They can’t get picked up in front of the house, they tell me it’s dangerous stepping outside at night, and that it’s like walking into a music festival."
Another resident, Bruce Torrey, slammed the outdoor dining application as providing "zero benefit to the neighborhood and in fact is a net-negative to our quality of life and safety."
"We need to do something to roll this back and here’s a first step," Torrey added.
Not everyone was on board with the bash session, however.
"It’s absurd to assert that a restaurant and outside café is not a resource to the neighborhood ... because New York City thrives on restaurants and entertainment," said Kat Maldon, who described herself as a Le Dive regular.
The Council will to vote on the application next week, according to Marte's spokesperson Caitlin Kelmar. Asked if the pol had changed his mind, Kelmar called the comments at the meeting "reflective" of Marte's position.
The Council press office declined to comment.
