Jorge Franco, manager of Las Margaritas restaurant in Jackson Heights, says the business and its employees are in the best interest of the city government’s decision to expand the emergency order that allows business owners to maintain these outdoor dining sheds.
“We create more jobs by having more service work abroad. It has benefited all of us… you know that the pandemic affected a lot as soon as one is recovering, ‘so’ that would help us all monetarily,” Franco said.
The order went into effect in June 2020, during the height of the pandemic, and saved about 100,000 jobs and helped more than 12,000 restaurants, according to City data.
Since then this order has expired several times and has been extended.
“I see it as positive because having more space allows more people to enter, we have more capacity, we need more employees, I see it as totally positive,” said Marcelo Varela, chef at the Chivito de Oro restaurant.
The municipal government made it clear that the city has not yet fully recovered from the ravages caused by the pandemic.
Noting that in June 2023, the City’s unemployment rate was 5.4 percent, higher than the national rate of 3.7% and higher than the February 2020 unemployment rate of 4.3 percent.
Mayor Adams has shown strong support for a bill introduced in city council that seeks to make these structures permanent in the city.
A proposal that many New Yorkers disagree with because, according to them, it obstructs public space, attracts more rats and limits parking.
Marino
“There are many of these places that are no longer occupied, we need parking,” said Fernando López, a Corona resident.
“That’s inconvenient and the restaurant owners, it’s been two years now and they’re giving it and here in a single block they have three restaurants and they have them outside,” said José Ignacio Mariño, a resident of Jackson Heights.
Last year the mayor’s office launched a program to dismantle the abandoned structures.
Sheds reported unused to 311 are inspected twice before the owner receives a letter notifying them that they will be torn down.
The emergency executive order that allows these booths was extended thirty days, pending the approval of the law by the municipal council to make them permanent.
2023-07-21 16:26:00
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