In hopes of surviving the economic toll of the pandemic, nearly 11,000 restaurants are now part of New York’s outdoor dining program – a program so popular that Mayor Bill de Blasio has made it permanent.
With this kind of success, the mayor turned to another popular activity: shopping. At the end of October, he announced the Open Storefronts program, which allows retailers to use their sidewalk space to do business outdoors, in a manner similar to restaurants.
But so far, the program has failed: Tuesday morning, only 563 companies had applied. Mr. de Blasio said 40,000 companies were eligible to participate.
There were a lot of things against. Business owners said the program was complicated, expensive, and too few, too late. It was to end on December 31; only 10 Staten Island companies applied and most of the applicants were in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Some business owners have said they are turned off by rules, including space restrictions and a ban on heaters, a main attraction for outdoor dining as the weather cools. Others said they couldn’t afford to pay employees to stay out in the cold to watch the merchandise.
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Several store owners have said that unlike alfresco dining, customer demand is not there.
“People have to eat, they have to socialize, but they don’t necessarily have to buy clothes,” said Liz Murphy, owner of Pente Vintage à Park Slope, Brooklyn.
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