A state lawmaker wants to force the city to allow curbside outdoor dining year-round after the city’s arbitrary winter ban decimated the popular program.
Assembly Member Tony Simone (D-Manhattan)’s bill would outlaw the city’s “stupid” December-to-March ban on al fresco roadway set-ups, he said at a press conference on Monday.
“We are the greatest city in the world, but sometimes we put a lot of rules in the way of making us even greater,” Simone said outside Empire Diner on 10th Avenue. “We did a really stupid thing, we made it too restrictive. We made that you had to take it down after some businesses spent spent close to $20,000, $30,000 for beautiful places outside.”
Roadway dining resumes on Tuesday in accordance with the new rules passed by the City Council and signed into law by Mayor Adams in 2023. But half as many bars and restaurants are participating compared to the earlier Covid-era program, which required significantly fewer bureaucratic steps to join…