Starting Sunday, Dec. 13, nearly every bar, restaurant and nightclub in New York State will have to keep naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug sold as Narcan, in its first aid kit. In an email to food and beverage businesses, the city Department of Small Business Services said employers must include an opioid antagonist such as naloxone wherever federal law already requires them to stock first aid supplies.
The rule reaches hundreds of businesses in North Brooklyn. In Bushwick, 209 establishments hold active State Liquor Authority licenses as restaurants or food and beverage businesses, and Bushwick, East Williamsburg, Williamsburg, South Williamsburg and Greenpoint together have 901, a Bushwick Daily count of the authority’s license records found.
The requirement rides on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, which requires many workplaces to keep first aid materials on hand. If a workplace already has to have a first aid kit under OSHA rules, it now also has to keep naloxone in it. According to the Small Business Services email, that covers “virtually all restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and other hospitality-focused businesses in New York.”
The rule comes from a state law sponsored by state Sen. Nathalia Fernandez that Gov. Kathy Hochul signed on Dec. 12, 2025, adding a section to the state labor law…
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