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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and with New Jersey now allowing indoor dining, at least at 25% capacity, New York City is the final holdout in the region where no amount of indoor dining is allowed. The stats on restaurants going out of business, the ones that have already happened, and the ones likely to come are sobering. At least one class-action lawsuit has now been filed against the state of New York, and fresh from a news conference in the Bronx that just ended, let's hear from two guests who were also seeking the mayor's and governor's attention to the issue. Bronx, New York City council member, Ritchie Torres is here. He's also, as many of you know, the Democratic candidate for House of Representatives in the 15th congressional district in the Bronx, after winning that multi-candidate primary. With him is Peter Madonia, chairman of the Belmont Business Improvement District from that section of the Bronx, and the owner of Madonia Bakery on Arthur Avenue. Part of what is sometimes called the Bronx's little Italy. Welcome Peter Madonia and welcome back Council Member Torres.

Peter Madonia: Thank you.

Brian: Peter Madonia, since it's your first time here let me start with you. Why don't you tell us about the situation on and around Arthur Avenue and your own business?

Peter: Well, my family has been in the business on Arthur Avenue for 101 years, but we're not unique in that. There are probably half a dozen or more families that still run the businesses that their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers started. It's a authentic and iconic neighborhood in that regard. We have a significant number of retail stores and restaurants, and while most of the retail stayed open and were essential quite frankly, butchers, bakers, pasta, the fish stores, all were open from day one of COVID. The restaurants obviously were shut down, but reopened outdoor dining and and really did a great job. We've actually turned the street on weekends into a piazza at night, and very much feels like that. Unfortunately, that's not a sustainable long-term model for any of these restaurants, not withstanding the fact that they've been around for 70, 80, 90, 100 years. It's just not enough capacity. What everyone wants and wants to understand why not, is some capacity for indoor dining, to move their head from just treading water to a little bit above water. Given that it's happening all around us within five minutes of this neighborhood, in lower Westchester, it's hard for anybody to understand why it hasn't happened already. We've heard the infection rate, but that's very low. We've heard density, but a city like Yonkers, and good for them that they're open, has 300,000 people in it. I haven't heard any major catastrophes happening there, and now it's enforcement. I did work for the city for 15 years in some pretty significant capacities. They got a lot of people that can do inspections if that's what it takes. Give them a ruler. There's occupancy signs in every restaurant, you divide by four, you get 25% and then you count how many people are inside. This is doable. It requires a plan and some direction to the owners. They are entrepreneurs, they will make it happen in 24 to 48 hours. In fact, you can ask them to do contact tracing, or at least be prepared for contract racing. They'll take phone numbers and names. Like it's really hard for, and I feel particularly for the restaurant, these are all friends and colleagues for generations for me. It's very hard to explain to them any rationale for why they are different than the rest of the contiguous counties and the two states around us.

Brian Lehrer: Let me bring in council member Torres on this, and I want to play a clip of Governor Cuomo, because he addressed this yesterday. I'll put this in the context of what Peter Madonia was just talking about comparing Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to Yonkers, which is very nearby. It's similar to the lawsuit that's been filed, led by a restaurant in Queens that's near the Nassau County border, charging that if it's safe to dine indoors a few hundred feet away over the Nassau County line, the governor can't say it's unsafe in his restaurant in Little Neck, Queens. You're saying the same thing about the Bronx and Yonkers, but here's what the governor said yesterday, or at least 25 seconds of it, about why the city alone still isn't allowing indoor dining.

Governor Cuomo: It would be negligent and reckless to open indoor dining, knowing that you have issues in upstate New York, knowing that compliance is going to be a problem, and knowing that you have no enforcement mechanism. We're still working through that because I believe local governments could help us accomplish this goal if they wanted to.

Brian: Council Member Torres, what do you say to the governor?

Council Member Ritchie Torres: There's a sense in which I agree with the governor. If the governor is saying that the city has to come up with a plan for a safe transition to indoor dining, that is precisely what I'm calling for, but there is no excuse for having no plan at all. New York City is the only place in the Tri-State area that has no limited capacity indoor dining. There are restaurants in the Tri-State area that have had indoor dining as early as June. Yet, the mayor has said that New York City will have to wait for a vaccine in order to resume indoor dining. That is a policy of economic suicide for small businesses in New York City. There is not a single restaurant in New York City that can long survive the indefinite loss of indoor dining. There is none. What happens when outdoor dining is no longer an option? Without the ability to have some measure of indoor dining, these businesses will not have the ability to pay the rent, owners will not have the ability to pay their property taxes, and New York City is going to lose the one revenue source that has sustained public services in our moment of greatest economic crisis. We are planting the seeds of our own economic and fiscal collapse by turning a blind eye to the needs of mom-and-pop restaurants.

Brian: Councilman, obviously you represent the Bronx, which was the hardest hit borough in terms of coronavirus deaths per population. You would want to protect the people in your district from the coronavirus. Why doesn't that lead you to be more conservative in your judgments about that? Especially as the governor says, that as he looks around the country, it's indoor dining that has lit the match that has sparked resurgences of the virus and that he would need additional enforcement capacity from local governments.

Council Member Torres: Again, if I understand the governor correctly, he is saying that New York City should have a plan for limited capacity indoor dining with an enforced mechanism. That is something that I agree with, but it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. In life, you're never going to fully eradicate public health risk. The best you can do is manage it as safely and as responsibly as you can. If the rest of the Tri-State area can safely transition to indoor dining, then why can't New York City do the same? The notion that New York City can do nothing but wait for a vaccine strikes me as an absurdity. In what universe does that kind of double standard represent anything resembling rational public policy?

Brian: Peter Madonia, how much interaction have you or Arthur Avenue restaurants had with the city over your current operations and your request?

Peter: We have very early put a plan together for outdoor dining. We did a streetscape, a professionally done streetscape so that when we were able to go outside, we were ready, set, go. On the indoor dining, we're at the mercy of a plan. Again, part of a plan is using the resources of the city and they are enormous. They're enormous, there are a dozen city agencies that have inspectorial capacity. They have to be trained to what to look for and given the tools to measure and calculate, but the city should be able to put a plan together that says, "Here's what our enforcement capacity looks like. Here's how we would do it," which is I think what the governor is asking for. That's fair, but to say we can't put a plan together, the plan is a vaccine, is a death knell. It's a death knell, there's nothing we can do here to prepare for that.

Brian: The governor says the state is at enforcement capacity now, and it would mean doubling the venues to keep track, up to 10,000, I guess that's 10,000 people. I'm not sure what that 10,000 number refers to, but he cited the number 10,000. They're at capacity now. Yes, I see. It's 10,000 venues, that there's so many restaurants in New York City, they just don't have the capacity to enforce it and really keep people safe. Council Member? Council Member Torres: New York City has the largest municipal workforce in the world. We have inspectors in the buildings department, the housing department, the transportation department, the health department. Where there's a will, there's a way. I'm confident that we have the institutional expertise to figure it out, but the scandal for me is not that we're failing, the scandal is that we're not even trying. There's not even an attempt to create a plan at the local level for a safe transition to indoor dining. That, to me, is the height of irresponsibility.

Brian: Peter Madonia, I'm going to let you go. I appreciate your time and your work as chairman of the Belmont Business Improvement District and owner of Madonia Bakery on Arthur Avenue. Thank you so much for joining us. Good luck to you and your family, and all the businesses on Arthur Avenue.

Peter: Thank you very much, Brian, and I love your show.

Brian: Thank you so much. Council Member, I'll take our last two minutes with you to touch on another issue. I could not even believe it the other day when the president of the police sergeant's union, Ed Mullins called you, I don't even want to say the word on the air of the slur that he called you, that has sexual connotations, really. What's going on?

Council Member Torres: Look, Ed Mullins has a clear pattern of professional misconduct and hate speech. There's nothing benevolent about Ed Mullins of the Sergeant Benevolent Association. He has referred to an African American, NFL linebacker as a "wild animal". He referred to a Latina health commissioner, as "the B-word". He has referred to an openly LGBTQ elected official as "a first-class whore". He has threatened violence against the mayor and has illegally invaded the privacy of his daughter. He has promoted videos that portray people of color as "Section 8 scam artist". The list goes on and he has embraced QAnon on which is a far-right conspiracy movement that traffics in antisemitism. These are behaviors that disqualify him from serving in any position of public responsibility.

Brian: In our last 45 seconds, do you think he represents the sergeants at large in the NYPD, in the characterization that you just gave, and how they feel toward different people and different groups, or is he a bad apple, as they say?

Council Member Torres: Look, the honest answer is I don't know. I can tell you what I hope and I can tell you what I fear. What I can tell you is that he is no longer capable of effectively representing his members. He is a pariah in the halls of City Hall and for the good of his members, for the good of the city, for the safety of communities like mine, he should resign from his position.

Brian: Bronx, New York City council member and Democratic congressional nominee, Ritchie Torres, thanks so much.

Council Member Torres: Thank you.

Brian: Quick reminder to sign up and tell your people around the country that you can sign up for our national politics daily podcast, it's called Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. [music]

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