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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and more than 2,800 businesses in New York City have permanently closed since March 1st, according to an article earlier this month in the New York Times. Nearly one-third of those businesses were restaurants, that's over 900. For those restaurants that have remained open, more than 80% did not pay full rent in June, according to the New York City Hospitality Alliance. Despite the grim facts, New York City's restaurants will not be reopening for indoor dining anytime soon. Joining me now to discuss what restaurants have been doing to survive and what might be ahead politically as well as economically, is Ben Yakas, arts and culture editor for Gothamist and WNYC. Hi, Ben.

Ben Yakas: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Let me start with a clip of the Mayor here last Friday on this show saying there is no plan to reopen indoor dining in the near future. Here's 30 seconds of that.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: We moved to outdoor dining, had never been done before. We've gotten almost 100,000 people back to work. We're going to do it again next year. That's what we could do and that's been safe. Indoor dining, look right now what's happening in Hong Kong, look right now what's happening in Europe. Unfortunately, it's proof positive that a lot of the problem comes from going back to the normal reality we knew with indoor dining. I wish it wasn't true. It just is true.

Brian Lehrer: That was Mayor de Blasio on the show last Friday. Ben, the restaurant industry association is lobbying for indoor dining, aren't they?

Ben Yakas: Yes, they are. They asked last week, they demanded that the state and the city come up with some plan, or at the very least, some explanation as to why they can't reopen indoor dining and to explain it to business owners more clearly.

Brian Lehrer: Now listen, ever since the Mayor said that indoor dining is most likely not happening this year, that's made a lot of news. That clip from the show last Friday got quoted in a lot of other news outlets. The restaurant industry is very disappointed and we're going to open up the phones here for any restaurant and bar owners in New York City. What are some other solutions for you? Do you have any ideas for extending outdoor dining through the fall or winter? I've happened to walk by one of the local restaurants in my neighborhood yesterday that was building a wooden platform out into the street for expanded outdoor dining from what they have had. Somebody was painting the fence it looked like Tom Sawyer or something like that. Yes, it's a tiny percentage, I'm sure, of the business that they used to do. What can you do to survive? Can you do anything to survive? 646-435-7280, or will getting monetary assistance from the government help get you by? Are you asking for that? 646-435-7280 for restaurant and bar owners in New York City, and anybody else who wants to weigh in? Ben, from your reporting, how effective has outdoor dining been in saving New York City's restaurants?

Ben Yakas: I think first off, you mentioned at the opening that about 900 more restaurants are permanently closed. I think those are probably conservative numbers at this point. I think we're closer to 1,300 or 1,400 restaurants that have closed over the course of the pandemic. Now, to me, the best way to think about it is that the first three months of the pandemic were absolutely brutal for the restaurant industry. It was devastating all across the city. So many places had to shut down immediately, had to do temporary or permanent layoffs of employees. When outdoor dining was introduced in June, July, this was really, really big for them. We now have almost 10,000 restaurants who are part of this program. As one restaurateur told me recently, as much as it's been helping, it's a lifeline that was never meant as a solution. Even though there's 10,000 restaurants participating, there's another 15,000, 16,000, 17,000 more that aren't able to, either because of where they're located, or they don't have the right permits, or they just don't have the space. As with the takeout, as what to-go alcohol, these are all short-term fixes. These are all things that have been described as band-aids. Outdoor dining hasn't saved the industry, but it has temporarily stopped the bleeding. The patient is in critical condition, but it's in stable right now. They really, really need some more things to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Then what happens when winter comes and you can't really get customers for outdoor dining except maybe a few hearty souls. What happens then?

Ben Yakas: As it is, it already is a problem in that there's a certain amount of New Yorkers who are maybe not comfortable going to outdoor dining right now, let alone considering going to indoor dining later. In the winter, this program is supposed to end on October 31st. That's when they are guessing that the warm weather will be totally over. As of right now, restaurants can't use propane tanks to do heaters outside. I don't even know, unless the city change some rules, unless they really work towards creating ways for places to stay open and winter, I don't think that that's going to continue and that is going to be devastating for them.

Brian Lehrer: Heated tents across sidewalks all over New York City is a coming?

Ben Yakas: It's one of those things that they certainly are not talking about at the moment. There are still so many unknowns about the winter. We don't know what's going to happen with the virus. We don't know if there's going to be a resurgence. We don't know if we're going to keep steady the numbers that we have achieved right now in terms of low infection rates. I think it's something that as we enter September and October, it's going to be discussed more and more. As of now, it's not something that is being widely discussed.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Mike in Ridgewood Queens, you're on WNYC with Ben Yakas from Gothamist. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hey, Brian. How are you doing? Great to talking to you. Huge fan as always. Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Mike: I just want-- Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. We got you. Go ahead.

Mike: Oh, amazing. I work at a pretty large restaurant in Bushwick that has a huge outdoor space. I won't drop any names here but so many people are coming and the way they casually say to me, "Oh, we came from Pennsylvania to come in here. We came from out of state, wherever." I don't even see any way that they can safely do any indoor dining. From the perspective of me as an employee at a restaurant that's around so many people, I'm like I just don't necessarily feel safe as it is. I'm back because capitalism. That's my take. Even if the owners are dying to get back to it, the government needs to step up and support the owners just for everyone's safety. I don't know. That's not even just in restaurants and everything.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] You're not ready even as an employee to go back to serving people indoors. You don't want that as a worker.

Mike: Yes. I've been out since they reopened in June. I guess the spot I work at has been good about not letting people work who are sick whatever, but still, just the people coming to it. I don't know. You saw what happened with the outdoor dining already when it's gotten out of hand. I don't trust people.

Brian Lehrer: Where people outside some bars, especially, don't socially distance and et cetera. All right, Mike, thank you very much. Let's go to Charlotta in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charlotta. Thanks for calling in.

Charlotta: Hi, Brian. This is Charlotta. I own Chez Oskar, and I'm part of the Bed-Stuy Restaurant Coalition. We fought for outdoor dining because we don't have commercial overlay. It's really hard for us to get it from our community. Our council member likes to write op-eds about how he likes to help small businesses. They all like to pat themselves on the back but they do explicitly nothing. Anyway, early on, my manager and I read about the pandemic, and we thought, "What can we do? We need to protect." Unlike what a lot of people think is owners just lose a lot of sleep about protecting their employees. Anyway, we came up with getting everyone vitamin D, vitamin D liquid. We took it up the nose. All of us who took it right from the go, we never got sick. Even though we were serving first responders, even though we were in the beginning, not social distancing, even though we have comorbidities. I'm 53, I'm an asthmatic and allergic and I am pre-diabetic but I never got sick because I was taking vitamin D. I read about that vitamin D deficiency. Even on Radiolab, I heard that once they put patients into the sun things got better and that's why also things are going down during the summer. We have to listen to the science. We have to really, really have a very good examination of what's going on. Also, air purifiers. There are so many things we could explore and try rather than try to politicize this thing.

Brian Lehrer: Charlotta, thank you very much. I do have to say that I don't want to be responsible for letting go unremarked a claim that vitamin D is a miracle prevention for coronavirus. I don't think there's any science that I've heard from anyone reputable that indicates that. It's certainly good to take vitamin D and vitamin D is from, what I've read, supposed to be helpful in some ways with respect to coronavirus, but there is nothing that I've seen that indicates what the caller is saying as, "Hey, take this and go about your business and you're not going to get it." That's her opinion, but I just want to put out there that that has to be responded to. Let's go to Tia in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hello, Tia.

Tia: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Tia: I'm not a first-time caller, but a lifetime restaurant worker and so is my husband and my family. I wanted to say a couple things. One, I wanted to uplift and center the undocumented immigrants who failed New York restaurant culture, who worked tirelessly in New York restaurants and have been left with no insurance, no pandemic employment, no unemployment and no rights. They are the ones standing on the street corners, Brian, waiting at food pantries, deciding between rent and food. They're always choosing rent because once you lose your home you can't come back, but you can certainly ask your babies and your kids to skip a meal.

Brian Lehrer: What do you need?

Tia: That's to the restaurant workers. Then I want to say that restaurant workers are not safe. We wear masks, but the guests don't. The guests are protected, but we are not. The majority of people working in restaurants right now are working in them because they have no choice and they don't want indoor dining because they know they're not going to be safe. My last point is that we've had high-profile restaurant tours dominating the conversation in New York City about what should happen for New York City restaurants. We've centered their voices and because of that, we have not talked about one of the number one thing that's going to contribute to the long-term sustainability of New York City restaurants and that's commercial rent control. Without commercial rent control, the New York City restaurant scene is done. We need up a bailout and we need comprehensive legislation for commercial rent control so that long-term restaurants can survive in New York City. We built the restaurant culture of this entire country. It's built with undocumented labor, with low-wage labor. You're looking at a labor force that has some of the most exploited people in the country. The idea that restaurant owners, the very people who are exploiting those workers should be deciding what's safe and what's not and how to bring back these jobs, millions of jobs, because it's not just the workers, it's delivery drivers, produce companies, wine companies, wine reps, and on and on and on. We need commercial rent control. We need relief for undocumented worker and we need to be centering restaurant workers, undocumented and documented in deciding how the restaurant industry moves forward, not millionaire owners like Danny Meyer, Tom Colicchio, et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: Tia, let me get a response for you. Thank you so much for your call. Ben, she puts a number of serious issues on the table there, obviously, and one of them is they're split in the interest between bigger restaurant owners and smaller restaurant owners, not to mention the workers. In what kinds of policies are needed to save people right now?

Ben Yakas: I think that she brings up such important points, especially about the fact that so many of these restaurant workers feel like they have no choice but to go to work, they need to make money. If their restaurants are going to be open, if they have the opportunity to work at a job, they're going to take it, even though we can't really say that it's a safe environment for them to be working in right now. Now on top of that, these restaurant owners obviously want indoor dining to come back because they realize they're never going to be able to make more than 30% to 40% of their normal income from outdoor dining and takeout. They're losing so much money in summer during their peak season than they had indoor dining back they would be able to make so much more, but this would be even more dangerous for the workers. Again, they're stuck in this position where they have nothing that they can really do about it, except go along with it if they want to make any money and keep their job and jobs are such a scarcity right now. I think that is such an unbelievably important point, but it also speaks to this rock and hard place that's so many small business owners are in. How do you keep your business alive without having workers, without being able to pay them? I think in terms of the legislation, this is where I think we need to be moving next. Which is to say, if the city and state are adamantly against indoor dining coming back, if they're not going to budge on that point because of health and safety reasons, then the city and state should be trying to come up with some sort of plan, some sort of aid that they can give to these businesses. The major legislation that is around right now is called the RESTAURANTS Act. This is a federal bill that would provide 120 billion in recovery and revitalization funds for businesses. There's a Senate version and a House version. Right now, the Senate version is the one that the restaurant insiders and industry people really favor because they would give a lot more power to small businesses to be able to get these funds. In terms of the city, I talked to the mayor's office just this week. They do not really have anything in the works right now. I think what they would say is they would point to the fact that there is a precarious fiscal situation with the entire city budget. They strongly support this federal bill. They strongly want this to happen, but other than that, we are seeing a little bit of a lack from local leaders in taking a step up to help promote more ways that they can financially support these small businesses.

Brian Lehrer: We'll finish up with Ben Yakas on the restaurant scene in New York City in a minute. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. [music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We have just a few minutes to finish up with Ben Yakas, Gothamist’s arts and culture editor. He's been writing about the dire plight of so many New York City restaurants. Ben, in one of your articles, someone interestingly pointed out that bowling alleys are allowed to reopen. Compare that to outdoor entertainment and restaurants and bars or outdoor only service at restaurants and bars, I gather they can bring people food at their lanes and they just have to bowl one lane apart. How does that not count as outdoor dining? Are the restaurant owners using that in some kind of political or maybe even eventually legal argument?

Ben Yakas: The one thing to note is that there are different rules to the state and the city. While in upstate New York, say, you can do everything you just said, in the city, you're not actually allowed to serve food indoors in these bowling alleys. You can basically go in with some friends, sit at a lane, that is separated socially distance from other lanes, so you have at least one lane between you and anyone else, and you can bowl. Now, mind you, I don't know why anybody would really want to do this right now, but you can do that. What the city and state would argue is that the big difference is that in a bowling alley, you can be wearing a mask the entire time. Obviously, anytime you're eating, any sort of eating or drinking scenario, there's no way that you can't take off your mask. This gets at the crux of why the city is putting its foot down on indoor dining, because no matter what, when you're indoors at a restaurant, there's no way of controlling the fact that people are taking their masks off probably for the majority of the meal.

Brian Lehrer: Same as the gyms, I guess, which can open. You can keep your mask on the entire time, even though there's a conversation about whether that's safe. Then we have 10 seconds. Is this headed to court? The restaurant association, I don't think has ever sued the city over policy.

Ben Yakas: No, they have a very good relationship with the city. It speaks to the fact that they say that the litigation is on the table right now, that if they don't get more communication from the city, this is a distinct possibility. There's already small groups of restaurants who have banded together to sue the city. We're probably going to see that in the next couple of weeks.

Brian Lehrer: Obviously, more to come. Ben Yakas from Gothamist. Thanks a lot.

Ben: Thanks so much.

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