Residents File Legal Challenge to New York City Agencies’ Finding of No Adverse Impacts of Permanent Open Restaurants

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Contact: Avery cueup.nyc@gmail.com

ALARMED RESIDENTS SAY “PREPOSTEROUS” CITY ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT GLOSSES OVER UNCONTROLLED BLIGHT, TRASH, NOISE AND CONGESTION STEMMING FROM OPEN RESTAURANTS

Press Conference: Thursday, Oct. 21, 11:00AM Intersection of Ludlow & Rivington Sts.

NEW YORK, NY (October 18, 2021) Concerned New York City residents are opposing an arbitrary, flawed determination by the City of New York that the proposed Permanent Open Restaurants program would have no significant environmental impacts citywide.

Many residents have suffered increased blight, noise, trash, traffic congestion, as well as rodents, since the Open Restaurants program started sixteen months ago. The group says the city’s finding that the program has “no adverse impacts” runs afoul of the reality on the ground, and needs further review as the city rushes toward making the program permanent.

Representing the group is distinguished civil rights attorney Michael H. Sussman, Esq.

“I am honored to represent New Yorkers fighting to restore the City to normalcy,” said Sussman. “Our sidewalks and streets belong to all the people, not those who own or rent bars or restaurants. People have a right to a quality of life. Making this program permanent without accountability would radically diminish the experience of many hard-working residents, sacrificing them and their neighborhoods. The City can do much better. Had the City conducted proper environmental reviews, not negated the experience of the last sixteen months, the proposed expansion of the Open Restaurants Program would be placed on infinite hold.”

According to George M. Janes, AICP, an urban planner with over twenty-five years’ experience, “The City needs to ‘scale back’” to “fully develop the replacement regulations, accurately study their potential impacts, and mitigate those impacts to the extent practicable. This Environmental Assessment Statement and proposal are incomplete, created to meet an artificial deadline that no longer exists.”

“You have only to look around our neighborhoods to see the immediate effects of the ‘Open Restaurants’ program on safety, health, sanitation, and environmental issues,” said Micki McGee, a resident of the South Village. “With 11,950 restaurants participating in the program, that’s a 110-acre giveaway of public land. We need a real conversation on the use of our public space, not a set-aside for one industry.”

In a crisis, New Yorkers came together and rallied around workers and business owners in supporting Open Restaurants. But, the group says, after sixteen months in play, the temporary emergency program forecasts a permanent program will be a disaster for the residents of this city.

“Hell Square on the Lower East Side got a whole lot hotter,” said Diem Boyd, a fellow petitioner and the founder of the grassroots resident advocacy group L.E.S. Dwellers. “The living conditions here are a warning shot for communities across the city about what happens to a neighborhood when bars, restaurants and landlords are favored over residents’ quality of life.”

The petitioners vow to remain vigilant because at the heart of this fight is the occupation of New York City’s public spaces and the right to quality of life.

“I’ve lived in my house for thirty-three years. I’m eighty years old. I always assumed, health permitting, I’d live out my life in my home. The city may make that impossible,” said Stu Waldman, a petitioner and a resident of Bedford St. in the West Village.

For additional information: KATHRYN ARNTZEN et al v. CITY OF NEW YORK

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