Opponents of the city’s outdoor dining program packed into an East Village community board meeting on Tuesday night with the goal of dismantling Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to make the structures permanent.
The presentation offered one of the first in-person chances to speak out against the pandemic-era changes to the streetscape, which many said had increased noise and litter in an area already dense with nightlife.
“We have mobs running through our streets from 2 a.m. to sunrise,” complained David Troutman, a resident of the so-called “Hell Square” section of the Lower East Side. “This is an incredibly stupid idea for New York City.”
Under the emergency outdoor dining program, bars and restaurants were authorized to expand to sidewalks and roadways during the pandemic with relatively few regulations (and last year the East Village became an early hot spot for outdoor drinking). The program offered a lifeline to the struggling industry, saving an estimated 100,000 jobs, according to the city.
Last September, Mayor de Blasio vowed to make Open Restaurants — as well as a sister program, Open Streets — “permanent and year-round.” According to a poll conducted by Data for Progress, two-thirds of residents agreed that the “city was right to close its streets to cars and open them to pedestrians and restaurants.”
READ MORE: The Most Elaborate Outdoor Dining Setups In Pandemic-Era NYC
But a majority of those on the community board — which has long played an advisory role in approving changes to bars and restaurants — said they’d been steamrolled by the city. At various points over the two-hour meeting on Tuesday, attendees hissed over the city officials’ presentation and vowed to rise up against what some described as a totalitarian land grab.
An outdoor dining set-up in the East Village
“It’s like the old days,” remarked Linda Johnson, an 82-year-old member of the land use committee, referring to the riotous confrontations that once broke out regularly at Community Board 3 meetings. “People are passionate.”
Laura Sewell, the executive director of the East Village Community Coalition, said that while she understood the need for swift action during the pandemic, the city had failed to anticipate the backlash to the program. “The response you’re seeing is because residents had no input in this from the beginning,” Sewell said. “They’ve been waiting for this moment since June 2020. It’s pent-up rage.”
Much of the rage was reserved for DOT officials, who explained that the emergency stipulations will remain in effect until at least next winter, as they embark on a “complex, multi-pronged approach” to develop new outdoor dining guidelines and codifying existing restrictions on how much space a business can take up.
That will likely include a licensing fee for restaurants, and an expectation that all sheds be accessible, “generally unenclosed,” and removable, according to the presentation. In the meantime, the Department of Transportation will be tasked with enforcing the current rules — something that multiple residents claimed they were unable to do effectively.
“We’re just trying to keep our neighborhood safe and clean and it’s being trashed by people coming in from other neighborhoods,” said Alexis Adler, a resident of 12th Street between Avenue A and B. She held a sign showing photos of rats that she said were attracted by the set-ups, warning that the sheds could be the cause of the next pandemic.
Adler said she'd photographed dead rats in and near outdoor dining structures
“This whole program is going to turn our area into an open-air alcohol zone,” echoed David Crane, a longtime CB3 member. One resident said he’d been forced to listen to “'Happy Birthday' sung outside my window 20 times a day," as others shouted that "this isn't Paris!"
While local business owners were largely absent from the meeting, they too expressed anger with the DOT’s handling of the program.
Moshe Schulman, a managing partner of Kindred on 6th Street, said the agency had conducted a “sweep” just prior to the meeting, handing out citations for offenses such as being too close to a tree and blocking a "no parking" sign. He was given just 24 hours to address the violations, which he described as "ridiculous and inaccurate."
“People think we’re done with COVID and everything is all great,” Shulman told Gothamist. “We’re just starting to get on our feet and try to normalize service.”
Other East Village owners said they were shocked to hear of the outrage at the local community board.
“Everyone has been helpful and supportive. I have a neighbor across the street who monitors my plants all day,” PriaVanda Chouhan, the owner of Desi Galli on Avenue B, told Gothamist on Thursday night. “People have been stuck inside for so long. They just want to enjoy the fresh air.”
