Make outdoor dining’s rules fit NYC’s eateries

Manhattan: NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn deserves credit for highlighting the importance of outdoor dining and reforms to ensure its long-term success (“It’s time for us to save outdoor dining,” op-ed, March 15).

Seasonal rules that require restaurants to repeatedly build, dismantle, store and rebuild roadway cafes create significant costs and operational burdens that many small restaurants in neighborhoods across the five boroughs simply can’t afford. But saving outdoor dining isn’t just about roadway cafes. DOT should also restore the long-standing clear-path standard for sidewalk cafes that worked for decades before the pandemic, was endorsed by DOT during the temporary program, but then inexplicably changed for the worse. The current limitations and complicated rules have reduced seating, revenue, jobs and worker pay. The city should also make the Dining Out NYC program easier to access by reducing fees, allowing paper applications and adding a “save your work” feature to the online portal, streamlining Community Board review, permitting high-quality sidewalk café enclosures in cooler months to support year-round revenue and jobs, eliminating the costly revocable consent requirement that adds months of red tape, and allowing fees to be paid in installments.

Outdoor dining has proven its value. The city must refine the rules so it can thrive across all five boroughs. Andrew Rigie, executive director, NYC Hospitality Alliance, and Tom Grech, president and CEO, Queens Chamber of Commerce

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