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Council Member Marjorie Velasquez opens Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection meeting on permanent outdoor dining program
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5 min
Council Member Marjorie Velasquez introduces a bill to establish a permanent outdoor dining program for New York City restaurants.
- The bill, Proposed Intro 31-C, would grant licenses for sidewalk and roadway cafes across all five boroughs.
- The program aims to be more affordable, accessible, and streamlined compared to pre-pandemic regulations.
- Outdoor structures like sheds will be removed, reverting to open-air layouts with tables, chairs, umbrellas, and planters.
- Council members and community boards will have the opportunity to voice opinions on cafe applications.
- The bill balances the needs of small businesses, residents, and other stakeholders while considering neighborhood impacts.
Chi A. Ossé
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Good
UNKNOWN
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morning, and welcome to today's New York City Council vote for the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection.
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At this time, please silence all electronic devices.
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Chair Velasquez, we are ready to begin.
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Good
Marjorie Velasquez
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morning.
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My name is Marjorie Velasquez and I'm the chair on the committee of consumer worker protection and I'd like to welcome you to our vote on proposed intro 31 c.
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I'd like to recognize my fellow committee members, council member Brewer, council member Farias, council member Jose, council member Juan, council member Menon, who's with us virtually, and council member Abreu.
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Proposed intro 31 c, sponsored by myself, would establish a permanent outdoor dining program for restaurants by granting license and revocable consents to operate sidewalk and roadway cafes across all five boroughs of New York City.
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The city's restaurant industry is an essential part of our social and economic framework.
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From high end fine dining to small family owned institutions, restaurants showcase the breadth of cultures and flavors that make up this great city.
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Restaurants provide so much for so many.
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A place to gather, a reason to visit, if any for a milestone celebration.
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We recognize the value that restaurants bring to our community.
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That's why we worked so hard to preserve the integrity of these small businesses during the height of the COVID nineteen pandemic.
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In June of twenty twenty, New Yorkers were enduring an isolated time period.
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As a result, the city launched an open restaurants outdoor and dining program as a temporary solution to the COVID nineteen pandemic in order to help save thousands of restaurants and their many employees from losing everything.
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This program afforded restaurants the ability to reopen their establishments, restore jobs, and provide patrons with a safe place to get outside and share a meal.
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For families like mine, outdoor dining and sharing these spaces was one of the only opportunities we had to connect with one another and be outside of our home safely.
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We learned a lot from this temporary program and the biggest lesson is that even three years later, New Yorkers love outdoor dining.
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We want to preserve these lessons that we learned and also look forward towards a permanent and sustainable future that works for all of us.
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We spent years negotiating with various industries and stakeholders to create a uniform program that considers the unique circumstances in each borough and neighborhood.
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I wanna take the time out to thank Rachel Cordero, David Seitzer, Sarah Swain, and Natalie Meltzer for their hard work throughout this process.
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We applaud restaurants for pivoting during the pandemic and finding creative ways to keep their businesses open.
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This permanent program will make it possible for restaurants to transition from the temporary program while continuing to operate outdoors.
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Compared to the pre pandemic sidewalk dining program, the updated permanent program will be more affordable, more accessible, faster, with less bureaucratic hurdles.
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The annual fees restaurants paid to the city will be considerably less than the pre pandemic sidewalk cafe fees.
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In addition to sidewalk cafes, many restaurants will be able to have roadway cafes, which was part of a pandemic era program that will be made permanent by this local law.
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Restaurants in outer boroughs that were once precluded from participating in outdoor dining due to zoning restrictions will now be able to have, for the very first time, a permanent sidewalk and or roadway cafe.
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For residents, this bill will return outdoor dining to pre pandemic setups that we remember.
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That means that sidewalk and roadway cafes will be limited to open air layouts with tables, chairs, umbrellas, and planters.
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The sheds and permanent structures that we have seen will come down, which will improve accessibility and clearances.
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Further, every council member, I repeat, every council member and community board will receive notice and have an opportunity to voice their opinion and have their voices heard on proposed plans for every CAFE application.
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There's been a range of opinions and perspective on this program and this bill has to strike the right balance between the needs of small businesses, residents, and other stakeholders, and it must consider the distinct neighborhoods and communities it will impact.
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It is critical that we establish a permanent program that will support small businesses, create jobs, and generate tax revenue for our city.
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It is also critical that we do this in a way that is orderly, consistent, and respectful.
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This bill does just that.
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And so I urge my colleagues to vote aye.
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Having reviewed the record before the committee and the technical letter prepared by the Department of Transportation dated 07/27/2023 in connection with CEQR number 21DOT016Y, which is posted on Legistar, which concludes that the proposed legislation would not, and I repeat, would not result in any significant adverse environmental impacts.