West Villagers Push Back Against Permanent Open Restaurants

WEST VILLAGE, NY — It was a packed house Monday evening in the West Village as residents and city officials participated in a joint public meeting between the Reopening Working Group and the Land Use Committee of Community Board 2 to discuss the plan to make the Open Restaurant program permanent throughout the city.

The crowd of West Village residents, armed with signs that read "Outdoor Dining Is Home Invasion" and "1984: War Is Peace, 2021: Residential Is Commerical," voiced an overwhelming disdain for the city's plan to make the program a permanent fixture.

"Five blocks of CB2 is not the same as five blocks in Bayside Queens," said one Lower Manhattan resident. "We have small, narrow, winding historic streets, you don't differentiate, this is not a thought out program, you're rushing to make it permanent and you don't understand it."

A loud cheer from the audience followed the comment.

Around 11,500 NYC eateries participated in the Open Restaurants program over the last year. While it is generally considered one of the few good things to come out of the pandemic, more questions have been raised since the City Council voted to make it permanent.

It was a boisterous meeting Monday as early on in proceedings a member of Community Board 2 overseeing the evening reminded people they couldn't shout out without being called.

"Thanks, mom," sarcastically rang out from the crowd.

"That's how I feel," she responded.

Representatives from the city and Department of Transportation started the meeting with a presentation about the history of the Open Streets program and the positives that came with it.

“The program has been a massive success and in April the City Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill to make it permanent,” the Department of Transportation’s Judy Chang.

Later in the presentation, a spokesperson from the DOT said that the current expectation for the permanent program is not to have every single restaurant application for roadway seating to go through the Community Board review process — which had been the previous norm under the temporary Open Restaurants program.

The statement was met with one of the loudest boos of the night and a "thank you for your honesty" comment from the crowd.

"I'm always honest," the DOT representative responded.

"You don't live here," a different audience member shot back.

The last hour and a half of the meeting consisted of comments from the public.

“So what you’re saying, it that loud, disruptive, commercial enterprises operating not behind closed doors, but serving hundreds of people right out on the street, people drinking copious amounts of alcohol, laughing loudly, talking loudly, doing it right under the window of residents, doing it until 1 in the morning, that you think these enterprises belong on streets that are zoned for residential," said a Lower Manhattan resident.

You can watch the entire meeting here.