Year-round outdoor dining for city restaurants is coming back — three years after the City Council restricted the practice to just the warmer months.
The City Council on Thursday passed legislation that would allow restaurants to put up heated, tent-like structures for patrons to dine outside when the mercury drops. The legislation also includes measures to establish penalties for operators who have trash, rats, graffiti or other unsanitary conditions in their al-fresco setups and allow restaurant owners to pay the annual fees associated with the city’s outdoor dining program in installments.
The package of four bills sailed through the Council, with votes of 37-5, 38-4 and 42-0 for two of the bills.
Speaker Julie Menin celebrated the passage of the new program, saying it would help make it easier for restaurants to participate in the city program.
“We’re really helping small business owners by fixing what was really a broken outdoor dining program and extending this to be year-round,” Menin said. “But we don’t want to completely ignore quality of life issues that were brought to us.”
Outdoor dining boomed during the pandemic, when, under an emergency order, thousands of restaurants put tables and chairs out on the sidewalks and streets so patrons could dine amid public health concerns and restrictions. But criticism of the outdoor dining arrangements built up, with detractors saying the spots were unsightly, dirty, and harboring rats.
Participation in the program plummeted after the passage of a 2023 law that made outdoor dining permanent while also scaling it back significantly. Dining al-fresco was banned from November to April and new design criteria were imposed, with wooden dining sheds outlawed.
Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who sponsored the bill removing seasonal restrictions, said that lifting the burden of constructing, deconstructing and storing outdoor dining setups “could very well” boost participation into the thousands.
As it stands, there are around 800 outdoor dining structures in the city, he said — down from 8,000 at its peak.
“This is what government should always be doing,” he said at a press conference ahead of the vote. “We should be innovating, looking at, trying to solve problems. And when things are not working, we fix it. We course correct. And I’m really proud that with Speaker Menin’s leadership, we’ve been able to do that here. It’s clear that the seasonal program is not financially viable for restaurants across New York City.”
Mayor Mamdani is expected to sign the package of bills into law.
“Mamdani proudly supports this much-needed legislation to improve outdoor dining and looks forward to working with City Hall to implement a year-round program that is more accessible to more restaurants and ensures our streets can be used in a variety of ways to benefit all New Yorkers — not just vehicles,” Mamdani spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said in a statement.
Edwards also pointed to a proposal from the Commission on Government Efficiency, a charter revisions commission empaneled by the mayor, to speed up the approvals process for outdoor dining and to cut application fees for restaurants participating in the program.
Andrew Rigie, executive director of NYC Hospitality Alliance and Counsel Robert Bookman applauded the new program in a joint statement.
“These changes demonstrate what can be achieved when policymakers listen to small businesses and work together on practical solutions,” Rigie and Bookman said.