Adrienne Adams on outdoor dining program: This isn’t new

A New York City Council committee hearing Monday showed lawmakers and advocates are not ready to put the issue of year-round outdoor dining to rest just yet as they continue to call for a return to its pandemic-era form. But as Council Speaker Adrienne Adams made clear Tuesday, to her, the program as it stands is nothing new. 

Monday’s hearing focused on legislation introduced by Council Member Lincoln Restler last month that aims to ease the permitting process for outdoor dining, expand the program to grocery stores and eliminate the seasonal pause on roadway cafes. The bill comes in response to a decline in restaurant participation in the past year, as restaurant owners have said the city’s revamped “Dining Out NYC” program is costly, difficult to navigate and bad for business. 

But asked about the critiques to the program prior to Tuesday’s stated meeting, Adams defended the program, which the council put in place during her time as speaker. 

“Legislation that was passed by this council with regard to outdoor dining had to do specifically with the conditions that were pre-pandemic, pandemic and post-pandemic,” Adams said. “That is the line that we stuck to. We merely just went back to pre-pandemic.” She declined to discuss Restler’s bill specifically, citing the ongoing legislative process.

City officials first introduced the outdoor dining program as an emergency program during the COVID-19 pandemic, relaxing restrictions to allow 12,000 restaurants and cafes to take part for free. The eased restrictions boosted restaurants’ profits while also allowing them to adhere to social distancing rules. After the pandemic, however, the council passed legislation in 2023 that brought back restrictions to outdoor dining, forcing restaurants to take down their outdoor dining structures in the winter, pay new fees and follow design rules.  

While Adams views the restrictions as just going back to rules of the past, before the pandemic spike, Restler argued that a change is needed.

“Who knows how many restaurants will manage to come back in April after the costly disassembly and storage fees this season,” Restler said during the hearing on Monday. “The new iteration of this program is failing our city.”

As winter approaches, restaurants are preparing to take down their outdoor dining structures in line with the law. If passed, the new legislation would not take effect in time for the structures to stay up this winter, but as Adams emphasized, it's still going through the legislative process.