EVG photo from 2023
The City Council's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a public hearing tomorrow (March 3 at 10 a.m.) on a set of bills that could significantly change outdoor dining rules — including allowing year-round curbside structures. (See below for details on testifying in person or online.)
Roadway dining structures first popped up during the pandemic summer of 2020 and became a signature feature of NYC streets. At their peak, thousands of restaurants citywide had outdoor setups; by late 2024, after new fees and seasonal requirements took effect, participation in the roadway program declined.
Some local restaurant owners and advocates want to restore year-round dining; some neighborhood residents worry about noise, crowding, trash, loss of parking, and narrow sidewalks.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin has signaled she wants to overhaul the outdoor dining program to make it year-round. Last October, Council Member Lincoln Restler, whose district includes Greenpoint, Northside Williamsburg, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn, introduced legislation with that goal. (Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also expressed support for a year-round approach, per Gothamist and Streetsblog. Both articles from last month have more details on the proposals.)
On the March 3 agenda:
Intro 0655-2026 would:
• Extend roadway dining to 12 months a year
• Allow restaurants to extend sidewalk and roadway cafes beyond their frontage
• Reduce the role of community boards in the licensing process
Intro 0628-2026 would create a drop-in office to help restaurant owners with outdoor dining applications.
A familiar debate
For East Village residents and business owners, these proposals raise familiar questions about how public space is shared, how sidewalks function, and how street life should be regulated — issues that surfaced repeatedly going back to the ease of pandemic-related restrictions.
CUE•UP, a coalition for participatory policy-making, opposes making Open Restaurants permanent. In an email yesterday, they listed objections to the new legislation, including:
Just look outside! The streets of New York City are covered with mountains of snow and ice. Now imagine these roads filled with the shacks that littered our streets for so long. Yes. There is a good reason to have a seasonal-only program – so our streets can be plowed after snowfall and our streets can be cleaned for at least four months of the year.
And...
In spite of all of this public generosity, restaurants have never fully complied with the rules of the outdoor dining program and never stopped demanding that they can no longer stay in business unless they get more public sidewalk and more public roadway. No other business has been as greedy and demanding as the so-called "hospitality industry." Enough is enough.
Meanwhile, Sara Lind, co-executive director of Open Plans, supports greater flexibility for businesses.
She recently told EVG in a statement:
The reintroduction of the curbside dining bill is a game-changer for outdoor dining in New York City. Right now, curbside dining is overwhelmingly concentrated in higher-income areas, not because demand is lacking elsewhere, but because the barriers for entry have been too high. A year-round program with less red tape will give smaller restaurants in neighborhoods across the city the opportunity to take part.
And...
We applaud Speaker Menin and Council Member Restler for making curbside dining a priority, and for treating outdoor dining as the civic infrastructure it has become. New Yorkers have made it clear they want these spaces to stay, and now our policy is finally catching up.
The hearing will be at 250 Broadway, Hearing Room 1 (8th floor), with an option to testify via Zoom. Details here.
Previously on EV Grieve:
