#De Blasio expands outdoor dining seating after Gov. Cuomo criticism

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Patrons dining at outdoor seating set up by restaurants and bars during the evening in Midtown East
Taidgh Barron

City Hall hopes to boost the Big Apple’s ailing restaurant business by allowing restaurants and bars that serve food to set up tables and chairs on streets closed for social distancing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.

The initiative comes a day after Hizzoner and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced they were pausing plans to allow indoor dining starting next week because of fears it could help fuel another coronavirus outbreak — and the lack of enforcement of social distancing and mask-wearing rules.

“We could not go ahead with indoor dining given everything we’ve seen around the city,” de Blasio told reporters at his daily briefing. “We have to double down on open streets and open restaurants and bring them together to address the situation — and bring the maximum number of options to our restaurants, to their employees.”

De Blasio deflected a strong rebuke from Cuomo Tuesday that the hold on indoor dining was largely caused by the city’s failure to crack down on the coronavirus rule violations.

“No,” Hizzoner said simply, rejecting the governor’s comments that, “If you have citizen compliance dropping and you don’t have local governments enforcing, then you’re going to see the virus go up.”

“We have to reduce the concentration in gatherings of people,” Cuomo said, explaining “citizens have to do it” and “establishments can help,” but “local government has to step up and do their job,” in a clear slap at de Blasio.

Still, de Blasio insisted Thursday, “The reason that indoor dining didn’t make sense was the data we received from states all over the country,” pointing to the reports of mass outbreaks in Texas, Florida and California linked back to bars and restaurants. “That really picked up in the last week or so, and it became and it became deafening how bad the situation was.”

De Blasio did not say how or if he would address the compliance issue to get New York on a footing that would allow indoor dining down the line.

Every other region in the state has been allowed to proceed fully to Phase Three of Cuomo’s reopening plan, which includes allowing bars and restaurants to serve indoors. The governor said Tuesday that would continue, despite the growing safety worries restaurants and bars across the country.

New York is set to go into Phase Three Monday, but will do so without being allowed to open indoor dining.

The mayor’s new plan aims to help make up for that lost capacity by expanding outdoor dining, allowing restauranteurs to set up tables and chairs on 22 streets on Friday nights and weekends.

Some of the streets are already closed during the day to give New Yorkers additional space for social distancing and exercise.

“Think about what is possible if we could make them centerpieces of outdoor dining,” de Blasio expounded.

The new, European-style cafe corridors will include stretches of streets in all five boroughs:

• Manhattan: Mulberry and Hester streets in Little Italy; Doyers Street in Chinatown; Orchard and Broome Streets on the Lower East Side; Gansevoort Street, 9th Avenue,
  
  
  13th Street and Little West 12th Street in the Meatpacking District; Broadway in the Flatiron District; West 46th Street in Times Square; and East 101st Street in East Harlem;
• Brooklyn: Anchorage Place and Dock, Main and Washington streets in DUMBO; Reed Street in Red Hook and 5th Avenue in Park Slope
• The Bronx: Arthur Avenue in Belmont
• Queens: Bell Boulevard and 41st Street in Bayside Village
• Staten Island: New Dorp Lane