#Outdoor seating impossible for some eateries thanks to wild NYC streets

Mayor Bill de Blasio has been touting his restaurant reopening program as a “huge hit” — but that’s not the case on a Queens street overrun with druggies, drunks and vagrants thanks to the city’s surging lawlessness.

Fahiyan Ahmed, who operates the family-owned LIC Grill in Long Island City, told The Post he eagerly embraced the city’s post-pandemic rules allowing dining tables on sidewalks and streets, only to have his dream of economic recovery shattered.

“On the first day, I set up two tables outside for a test run. We got two customers that sat down, but then they came in said, ‘We’ve got to take the food to go,’ ” said Ahmed, 29.

“There was crack smoke blowing in their face, marijuana smoke, K2 smoke. There were people coming up to them asking for money. There were drug dealers yelling at their runners. There were gang signs being thrown left and right.”

Even worse, Ahmed said, “Two homeless guys sat down at one of our tables.

“I told them the seating was just for customers, but they didn’t want to move,” he said.

“So finally, my manager and I had to force them off and brought the tables back inside. We never took them out again.”

Rocky Garcia, who manages a Subway sandwich shop two doors away, had a similar tale of woe.

“We had planned to do outdoor seating, but it’s impossible,” he said.

“If you put out chairs and tables, it’s not for the customers, it’s for these people. It just makes more problems.”

Garcia, 40, added: “The people that live in this area, they don’t want to come get food here. They’re scared. If they come, then a homeless person follows them in asking for money, asking for a sandwich. Who wants to deal with that?”

During a virtual news conference from City Hall on Thursday, de Blasio began his remarks by declaring, “Great things are happening like our Open Restaurants initiative, the outdoor dining, it’s been a huge hit.”

On Friday, de Blasio focused on plans for stepped-up enforcement of coronavirus-related regulations this weekend outside restaurants that have been so successful that they’ve led to mobs of people clogging streets in Astoria and the East Village.

“We absolutely are planning to have a lot of people out — the civilian folks doing education, the face coverings, a lot from the Sheriff’s Office, [police] as needed,” he said.

Earlier this week, de Blasio boasted that “over 9,000” eateries were taking part in the program, which he recently said would be extended through Oct. 31.

But on the block of 21st Street in Long Island City that’s home to LIC Grill and the Subway store, the idea of eating at one of its outdoor spaces would have turned anyone’s stomach early Thursday afternoon.

Two dozen men were gathered on the sidewalk, many shuffling around with their eyes glazed over and their heads hanging down, or peering intently into the store windows.

One man in a hoodie appeared to be smoking K2 and drinking beer from a can in a paper bag, while another sat with a hand stuck down his pants.

Ahmed said he and his parents plowed their lives’ savings into opening their business, which specializes in Indian and American cuisine, in 2018 after immigrating from Bangladesh.

The place used to have regular patrons, but the coronavirus crisis led to a 50 percent drop in sales — and things only got worse when the local hotels “turned into shelters” for homeless people, he said.

“From the moment they came here, you saw the drug dealers setting up shop on the street,” Ahmed said.

“Within two days, you saw people passed out, drinking malt liquor all day, on the ground spilling it, fights starting. It’s been horrible ever since.”

Now, receipts are down 80 percent, “we’re behind on our rent,” and nearly the entire staff has been laid off, he said.

Ahmed’s father — Nurul Ahmed, 62, who works as a waiter at the Sheraton hotel in Times Square — said, “With this situation, I don’t see how we can stay open for more than a few months more.

“If I wanted to go out and eat with my family and saw this situation, I wouldn’t eat here,” he lamented.

The younger Ahmed said he’s repeatedly sought help from the hotel operators and the NYPD, but his pleas have been in vain.

“I spoke to the hotels housing the homeless nearby. I spoke to the directors, everybody. They said there’s nothing that can be done,” he said.

“The NYPD has enough on their hands. They tell me, ‘We can tell them to move, but that’s the best we can do.’”

A customer, Somon Zaki, 32, said he liked the food at LIC Grill but felt “uncomfortable” having to routinely run a gauntlet of filthy beggars to pick up takeout orders there.

“They’re waiting by the door, saying, ‘Give me 75 cents, give me a dollar.’ Maybe we’d give them money, but they don’t ask nicely,” he said.

“They’re rude, they’re drunk a lot of the time, they’re not clean.”

Zaki added: “Outdoor seating would be out of the question. There is a pandemic situation, and eating with all these people around would not be safe. I’ll eat at home or in my car, but not here.”

Agustin De La Puente, 48, who has an antiques warehouse next door to LIC Grill, said he was forced to install a wrought-iron gate around the entrance to keep vagrants off the steps.

“We have all these people sitting here, throwing garbage, smoking pot, selling drugs. I have to fight every day,” he said.

“I’ve called the police so many times, I’m tired of calling the police already. They do nothing. When they come, the guys just move across the street, and when the police leave, they come back.”

De La Puenta also said the problem was caused in part because the Best Western Plus Hotel next door won’t let the homeless people who stay there loiter out front, leading them to drift down the block.

A manager at the Best Western declined to comment and referred The Post to city officials, who didn’t respond to an inquiry.

The NYPD said it had only one record of a call from LIC Grill this month, regarding an unconscious person on the sidewalk at 11 a.m. July 14, and also noted that the department no longer handles homeless outreach, due to a $1 billion cut to its operating budget.

Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy