Restaurant owners are already having a tough time during the COVID crisis. Now, a new piece of City Council legislation, which bills itself as helping eating establishments, may actually make things even harder.
The proposed law was designed to allow more sidewalk dining for restaurants, to cope with the difficulties of making facilities more secure for patrons during the pandemic and its aftermath.
The problem is, it places sidewalk food vendors on basically an equal footing with restaurants.
The legislation states: “a food vendor may vend in an open space approved by the department of transportation pursuant to this subdivision provided that such vendor adhere to any guidelines issued by the department of health and mental hygiene pursuant to this subdivision…No later than seven days following the effective date of this local law, the department of health and mental hygiene shall establish guidelines for food vending in open spacing, including, but not limited to, those relating to spacing of food vendors.”
This is a direct threat to the profitability and even survival of restaurants. The legislation should be immediately amended.