To eat outdoors in New York you will no longer have to wait for the arrival of spring. On Thursday, August 13 the City Council approved a measure that eliminates seasonal restrictions for dehors installed on the roadside, allowing restaurants in the city to keep their outdoor spaces open during all twelve months of the year.
Until now, municipal legislation required a clear distinction between two types of tables. The dehors placed on the sidewalks had already the possibility to remain operational all year round, while the structures built on the roadside, occupying the space before reserved for parking, could remain open only from April 1 to November 29. With the arrival of autumn, the restaurateurs were obliged to disassemble all the structures and then rebuild the next spring.
The new standard, called Introduction 655-A and promoted by councilman Lincoln Restler, cancels the obligation to dismantle and authorizes the premises to employ insulation structures and materials suitable for winter temperatures. At present, there are 1.649 New York restaurants with a license within the city program, and in cold months they will have greater flexibility to protect customers from weather. However, the law confirms the time limit set by the Department of Transport, which imposes the closure of external areas at 23:00 to contain noise in residential areas. Another amendment also authorizes dehors to use protective covers between 30 November and 31 March, entrusting the city authorities with the task of establishing the technical criteria of allowed materials.
Along with the new openings, the legislative package introduces stricter controls on the state of maintenance of the structures. The managers will have to ensure the constant cleaning of commercial spaces, keeping them free from waste, food waste, graffiti and parasites, with sanctions of 200 dollars for the first violation and 500 dollars for the next. In order to support small businesses, the Council at the same time granted the possibility of extending the payment of the annual tax on public land employment in four quarterly installments, rather than in one single solution.
The widespread presence of the tables along the New York sidewalks was born in June 2020 with the Open Restaurants emergency program, designed to allow the premises to continue the activity during the closed sanitary restrictions. What was born as a temporary intervention was transformed into a permanent measure in August 2023 with the birth of Dining Out NYC. The elimination of the winter block now aims to reduce the logistic costs for refreshers, avoiding the annual expenses of disassembly and storage of materials, and consolidating the pedestrian use of road spaces. The adaptation of the premises will take place gradually according to the authorizations of the individual districts, but the new law marks the definitive passage of the winter dehors to fixed element of the urban landscape of New York.
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