Council grills DOT, businesses over slow rollout of Dining Out NYC program

A joint hearing of the New York City Council committees on Consumer and Worker Protection and Transportation and Infrastructure on April 10, 2025, focused on the troubled rollout of the city’s new permanent outdoor‑dining program, Dining Out NYC, and on ways to speed approvals and reduce burdens on small businesses.

The program, created by Local Law 121 of 2023, was intended to make the city’s pandemic-era open‑restaurants program permanent and to expand outdoor dining citywide. At the hearing, Council Member Julie Menon, chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, said the Department of Transportation’s slow processing left restaurant owners “in a state of absolute uncertainty” and called the rollout “nothing short of disastrous.”

Why it matters: Dining Out NYC was billed as a lifeline for thousands of small food businesses and a way to activate streets across all five boroughs. Business owners and industry groups told council members that delays, high up‑front costs and certain engineering and clearance rules have sharply reduced participation from pandemic levels and disproportionately affected small, immigrant‑owned and outer‑borough restaurants.

Most prominent complaints - Processing delays and numbers: Council and witnesses cited sharply different tallies. Menon and industry advocates cited early DOT figures saying only a small number—67 in one statement—had completed the full revocable consent and licensing process. DOT officials said the program has received about 3,922 applications from roughly 3,200 food service establishments and that, as of the hearing, about 2,603 applicants were able to operate under temporary or conditional approvals while final paperwork proceeded. Margaret Forgione, First Deputy Commissioner at DOT, told the committees DOT’s goal is to get “every restaurant operational as soon as possible” and said the agency had issued conditional approvals and allowed sidewalk operation where applicants met the August 3, 2024 deadline. - Seasonal roadway rules and costs: Restaurateurs pressed for year‑round roadway dining. Andrew Ritchie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said seasonality and the cost of repeatedly constructing and storing setups make many small businesses decide not to participate: “Year round outdoor dining in the roadway. Making the program seasonal was a big problem,” he testified. Several small operators gave concrete cost examples at the hearing. Megan Rickerson, owner of Someday Bar in Brownsville, said she has spent $36,948.36 to prepare for the program and estimated annual rebuild costs of $8,000–$10,000, calling the program unaffordable for lower‑price neighborhood bars. - Clearances and lost seats: Restaurant owners said DOT’s clearance maps and the way clearances are measured have reduced permitted sidewalk seating compared with prior approvals. Robert Guarino, of Chef Driven Group (Nizza), said a long‑operating sidewalk setup in Hell’s Kitchen lost seats under new clearances—“we went from 24 seats to 14 seats”—which he said reduces staff and revenue. - Application process, language access and technical barriers: Industry witnesses and small operators said the online application was hard to use, could not always be saved, and initially launched in English and Spanish only. DOT said the application is available in 12 languages and that the agency has conducted 44 webinars, distributed 15,000 palm cards and provided individualized assistance, including Zoom sessions in which DOT staff redraw plans with applicants. - Revocable consent, legal and procedural complexity: Legal and industry witnesses said the continued requirement for a revocable consent and the city‑charter steps (public hearing notices, controller and comptroller steps) make the timeline long and costly. Rob Bookman, counsel to the Hospitality Alliance, said a “rookie mistake” by DOT was delaying the statutory “completeness” clock until DOT completed its full substantive review rather than starting the community‑board and interagency review simultaneously. He called that interpretation the major cause of the backlog. - Equity and participation across boroughs: Industry groups and borough officials urged the city to remove barriers that have dramatically reduced participation in outer boroughs. Speakers cited borough‑level comparisons: where the pandemic program had hundreds or thousands of setups, advocates said the new permanent program had just a few dozen in some boroughs at the time of testimony. - Accessibility and enforcement: Disability advocates pressed for strong enforcement and clear accessible configurations. Jean Ryan of Disabled in Action and a legal fellow from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest both urged more active enforcement and reporting on accessibility complaints. Community boards, especially Manhattan Community Board 2, said they are receiving many applications and raised concerns about pedestrian clear paths and ADA compliance.

DOT’s response and fixes proposed at the hearing DOT officials described outreach and operational steps the agency has taken: assigning a dedicated reviewer to each application, offering remote walkthroughs and site visits, creating a marketplace directory for compliant furniture and setups, and issuing conditional roadway approvals to allow operation while final contractual steps proceed. Forgione said conditional approvals and sidewalk operations allowed many restaurants to open for the season and emphasized that the program “is already well over double the size of the city’s pre‑pandemic program” in terms of licensing rules. DOT also said it had temporarily hired consultants and reassigned staff to process submissions.

Suggested legislative and administrative changes discussed Witnesses and council members advanced a set of approaches the council could pursue to increase participation and reduce burdens: - Allow year‑round roadway dining to eliminate the costly seasonal teardown and storage cycle. - Reconsider revocable consent or alter how it is administered so it does not add duplicate, multi‑month contract reviews. - Reintroduce in‑person licensing help centers or DOT office hours similar to the former DCWP (Department of Consumer and Worker Protection) licensing center, which many witnesses said had previously helped restaurants submit complete applications. - Simplify clearances (for example, return to a simple formula such as 8 feet or 50% of the sidewalk where appropriate) and publish clear, block‑level guidance. - Provide targeted financial and technical assistance—grants, waivers or fee reductions—for small and immigrant‑owned restaurants in outer boroughs. - Strengthen language access and permit saving/resumption features in the online system.

What the hearing did not decide No legislation was adopted at the hearing. Council members and DOT agreed to continue working together; Council Member Menon asked DOT for a list of examples where applications were processed quickly from start to finish so members could validate the agency’s responsiveness claims.

Closing note The hearing underscored wide agreement that outdoor dining remains a public good for many New Yorkers but revealed deep disagreement about implementation details. The council signaled it will continue oversight and consider statutory changes; industry groups urged immediate administrative fixes and potential statutory modifications to expand participation and control costs.

Speakers quoted (selected) “During the peak season of outdoor dining...DOT is woefully unprepared to meet this moment for thousands of small businesses,” — Council Member Julie Menon, Chair, Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. “Dining Out NYC promised to make New York City's al fresco dining the envy of the world... But that promise is slipping,” — Andrew Ritchie, Executive Director, New York City Hospitality Alliance. “The program simply has not worked out as well as we all had hoped for,” — Rob Bookman, counsel to the New York City Hospitality Alliance. “We have received nearly 3,900 applications from over 3,200 restaurants, and our goal is to help all of these restaurants participate in the program,” — Margaret Forgione, First Deputy Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation.

Ending Council chairs said they would continue working with DOT and stakeholders to address the concerns raised at the hearing and flagged potential follow‑up legislation and oversight sessions in coming weeks.