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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. Now to your calls on making outdoor dining permanent in New York City, Louise in the West Village, you’re on WNYC. Thank you for calling. Hi.

Louise: Oh, hi. I live on a street that is not a commercial street though. Every corner around me in the West Village, there are these outdoor dining restaurants. I always love it when there are restaurants everywhere, but now with the outdoor dining, it's caused a huge rat problem. I call them rat habitats because what they do is the sidewalks are okay. They have the tables there, but when they build a platform in the street, they elevate it from the street about four inches and they put these wooden platforms there and rats just live under there. It's like whole colonies of rats. I saw this aged rat hobbling down the sidewalk the other day. They're everywhere and it's ruining the neighborhood.

Brian: Have you spoken to any restaurant owners about it, whether there's something that they could do differently structurally? I don't know if there is but that would discourage the rats or anything like that?

Louise: Oh, yes. I haven't asked them about that. Basically what they could do-- Oh, thank you. What they could do is put the outdoor things on the street, just put tables on the street. There are a couple of restaurants that do that and it works fine, instead of elevating them with these wooden platforms. I haven't spoken with the owners. Maybe I'll start doing that. I'll have a little campaign.

Brian Lehrer: Louise, thank you very much for starting us off. Haley in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Haley.

Haley: Hi. I work in the service industry and I just want to say this program is much more than a stopgap to help restaurants. It kept most restaurants and bars open, and now we're heading into the winter and this pandemic isn’t over, most people want to continue to eat outside. We need it right now to stay alive.

Brian: What do you say to the last caller who's concerned about what appears to her, anyway, more rats in the neighborhood as a result of maybe the platforms or maybe just the presence of outdoor dining?

Haley: I absolutely understand her concern. It's just as much a concern for restaurant owners as it is to anyone else. Structures, how they're situated and how they have to be elevated, that's all coming from the city and the state. If she's serious about that, she'll need to talk to the mayor and voice her concerns about those structures there.

Brian: All right. Louise, in the West Village, you hear that, you'll have to talk to the mayor. Now, the mayor happens to be coming on this show on Friday and taking calls. Call back, and I'm serious, I will put you right through to the mayor on the rats, or if not, I will ask him myself. Haley, you mentioned the winter coming. I'm sure you know that one of the most recent things is the mayor has said no more propane heating because propane is a fire hazard. Do you know, in your restaurant's case and I gather you're not the owner of the restaurant, you just work there, but if there's going to be an alternative to propane, that's warm enough to actually let outdoor dining continue in the winter?

Haley: I don't know at that point. I understand that's a really tricky regulation to deal with. It's dangerous to have propane out there and also we want to keep diners warm. Hopefully, that's something where between the mayor and the governor, we can actually connect with restaurant owners and start the dialogue and make this as safe and as [unintelligible 00:04:02] as possible for everyone involved.

Brian: Haley, thanks so much for your call. Good luck out there. Let's see. Penelope on Twitter writes, ''Yes, keep it and expand it, such a better use of public space than free storage of private property for a minority of New Yorkers, AKA parking spaces.'' That's an interesting way to refer to parking spaces. Free storage of private property for a minority of New Yorkers. Penelope writes, ''As for garbage, all of us should be putting our trash into dumpsters instead of piling it up in plastic bags on the sidewalk.'' Thank you, Penelope, I'll continue to watch Twitter go by with your comments on outdoor dining and whether it should be made permanent. Teresa in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hi, Teresa.

Teresa: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking the call. Astoria is another restaurant-centric neighborhood if you know anything about Astoria. I would like to see those enclosures in the street removed. I'd like the program done away with, however, there's a caveat, replaced with sidewalk dining. Before the pandemic, restaurants would have to pay a rather hefty fee, something like $15,000 a year, maybe more for sidewalk dining permits. Those should be offered for free to restaurants to help them recover.

The street enclosures should be done away with, but many of them are eyesores and they do take away valuable parking for the merchants in the neighborhood. Penelope who just called, she mentioned putting garbage in dumpsters. Well, the dumpster would have to live on the sidewalk or on the street, and that's unsightly too. I say complimentary sidewalk dining for restaurants. It won't be as big as the street encloser, but it's something.

Brian: You're drawing the line at the curb. You're saying sidewalk dining, okay, but don't go out into the street for the sake of preserving parking spots, but the Twitter Penelope didn't-- [crosstalk] Yes, safety. Go ahead.

Teresa: Safety because at least in Astoria alone, there have been at least two deaths related to the streets dining.

Brian: How so? Do you know how they came about?

Teresa: Yes. A car was speeding out of control and hit an enclosure. There was a delivery boy parked right there and he was killed and people inside were injured. The whole enclosure was damaged.

Brian Lehrer: You know there are a lot of people who will say we should be cracking down on the speeders then, not telling peaceful restaurant workers and customers that they can't be sitting somewhere.

Teresa: Well, that's a different issue. Speeding in the city is a different issue. Believe me, I walk those lines because I'm an avid biker and pedestrian, but I also own a car. I see it from all angles. It's also dangerous for bikes because the enclosures take up precious bike areas as well.

Brian: Thank you for your call, Teresa. I really appreciate it. Here's another tweet that came in. This is in favor. Slope on Twitter says, "Yes, I'm an old guy who used to hate loud noises and crowds. Since the pandemic, I find it very comforting. I live above a 24/7 diner. They have new outdoor seating just outside my bedroom window and I love hearing people enjoying themselves, especially young people." So says Slope on Twitter. I wonder if Slope lives in the slope. We don't know. Daniel in Washington Heights, you’re on WNYC. Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: Hi, Brian. How are you doing? I'm a restaurant owner. I can say that without my outdoor dining box, I would be out of business. The biggest problem we have is that many diners do not want to come indoors. We're a very highly respected restaurant. We're a go-to restaurant in our neighborhoods. When you see a full-packed restaurant, if that happens indoors, people just say, "No, I don't want to come in." People will cancel their reservations. This outdoor dining, and we built a beautiful box, needs to continue until after a pandemic is gone away. I also get many customers saying how much they love the look and everything. I should say something though about rats.

We're having the biggest problem with the slowdown of garbage collection. The corners, all the baskets are overflowing. I just walked my dogs this morning, they're overflowing. That's the biggest thing. Also, one caller said it was $50,000 outdoor dining. That's an extreme exaggeration. It's about $2,200 before the pandemic. I would say that the department of transportation that spells out how you should build your box, they're very exact and also how to make it vermin-free by using chicken wire and putting tubing underneath these dining boxes as we call them so the water can freely flow. It's very, very, very professionally done. I do oppose having dilapidated boxes that aren't being cared for, but we really need to think about what to do with that. If we don't have those, I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm at 60% of what I was pre-pandemic. I could not survive without this. My box and my outdoor dining.

Brian: I hear you. To some of the concerns, it sounds like you're saying there are structural fixes to keep the rats away. You're saying, if we're going to have outdoor dining as a permanent thing in New York City, then the trash collection needs to keep up with that. Of course, you were taking out the trash even when all your customers were indoors. Do you think that the mayor's make outdoor dining permanent plan includes, I don't know if you've looked at it individually, I don't know offhand myself, includes more robust street trash collection?

Daniel: Yes, sir. Absolutely, and I am very excited to have it permanent and I have so many of my customers saying, "What a delight it is, how it's Europeanized. I looked on our street.'' I think we can all live together and there are restrictions, the restrictions should be enforced. There are restrictions from the Department of Sanitation and they shouldn't be enforced. I can understand if neighbors don't want to have a dilapidated thing. Another thing, I don't think many people do but we follow through our community board to shut down our outdoor service by ten o'clock to not bother our neighbors.

Brian: Right, so that's definitely a factor, and Daniel, thank you for your call. When should they be forced to close for the noise? I know we've gotten a lot of complaints from listeners who are neighbors of outdoor dining, live upstairs in the same building, and say, "Ah, this noise, the sound goes on late into the night especially on the weekend and I can't sleep. It didn't use to be like this. This is not what I thought I was paying rent for. I thought I was being a co-op or condo owner for these were not the conditions that I bought into." That's a whole other interesting sub-topic, I guess, is past what time of night. Cole in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Cole.

Cole: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for this conversation. I got to say, so I called saying I hate them, get rid of them, get rid of them now but then listening to, especially your last caller, if they were all nice Europeanized structures, I think I would be okay with it. I am of the, what was it, the minority who use it for storage so I can get to work and back so I can live in the city.

Brian: Your own a car?

Cole: Yes, I own a car. That's what I was saying. Parking in my neighborhood, I used to be able to park right up in front of my building. I now have to go four blocks down into a secret spot that no one knows it's not really a crosswalk and I have to-- we're tricky about it. We're New Yorkers and we deal with it, but I also agree with your callers who say that a sidewalk is fine. The road to me just gets-- I've seen things that were near-accidents that I'm sure aren't reported on. My heart goes out to the delivery driver, the story of the guy in Astoria who got hit doing his job. That is the most dangerous job in the country, is delivery drivers and we're not making it easier for them.

If there were some way for a compromise where we can have sidewalk dining or something like that, and I do think there are people. I travel a lot, so I'm in the city where right now I'm looking around everyone has masks on, everyone's keeping their distance. I'm about to go to Costco, let's see how that goes. When I go outside of the city, it's very different. I was just in Connecticut and no masks, no distance, people licking and touching everything in front of them. So I think there are people who are willing to go inside for a meal and maybe bring it back to some normality would be nice. I think I got everything.

Brian: Thank you, you got a lot in there. Thank you very much, please call us again. It's interesting about the cars. Obviously, such a debate on either side of it and this wouldn't solve our last call. There's an issue with his parking spots near his building have been taken up now by outdoor dining and has to park blocks away and maybe right around the neighborhood more to find a spot. This doesn't solve it but I have a stat here from nycfood policy.org, which is pro outdoor dining, and says an estimated at 8,550 parking spaces, if that sounds like a lot, across the city have been repurposed for outdoor dining. 8,550 parking spaces.

Well, what percentage of the parking spots in New York do you think that is? According to nycfoodpolicy.org, it's 0.3% of the total number of parking spaces in the city. That's what they would emphasize to say, that's all the parking spots that are being eliminated. 8,550, 0.3%. Anyway, thanks for all your calls on any side of that. That does it for The Brian Lehrer Show today. We were produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, and Carl Boisrond. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast. Our interns this fall are James O'Donnell and Prerna Chaudhary, and we had Milton Morero Ruiz at the audio controls.

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