Ugh! NYCs rat-attracting, traffic-snarling menace is back with a vengeance

Just when we thought that New York City’s year-round, roadway-hogging, vermin- and drug addict-welcoming outdoor dining sheds were toast, the City Council brought them back on Thursday.The legislators swear the monstrosities will smell better than they did before.Sure — the body that also voted to approve an “official” flag for Staten Island knows what’s best for all the boroughs’ eating habits.The Council on Thursday approved four separate bills to allow 12-month dining structures on city streets.

Current rules requiring them to be taken down from December through March, and design rules to make them easier on the eyes, are chopped liver.Council speaker Julie Menin is the rare sane voice in what passes for municipal government under Mayor Zohran Mamdani.But Menin, who strongly endorsed the bills, is out to lunch this time.Naturally, the restaurant industry is tickled pink.

One Upper West Side bistro owner told the New York Times the new law was “a whole new ballgame for restaurants.”It sure is.What’s an easier game for owners than adding seats at $5 per square foot in outer-borough neighborhoods where rent goes for $150 per square foot? Or $25 per square foot in mid-Manhattan, where an indoor lease costs up to $500 per square foot?Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York Hospitality Alliance, called the new rules “critically important reforms.” Why wouldn’t he? Rigie is an advocate for restaurant owners, a job he does very well.But what about the rest of us 8.5 million New Yorkers?The outdoor structures that sprang up in the summer of 2020 were lifesavers for the pandemic-battered restaurant industry.

They gave locked-down New Yorkers a way to finally get out of  their apartments.But they outlived their usefulness by the end of that year when the infection rate fell to near-zero.Yet they continued to multiply, eventually clogging streets with up to 13,000 legal and illegal structures. A friend who owns an Italian place i...