Don’t Miss These Important Dates

Dear HL Clients and Friends:

Happy Tuesday, friends. We come to you today with some important reminders. We know how hectic the day-to-day of running your businesses can be – especially in this bizarro world where we now all live. So, we wanted to make it a point to emphasize that none of the following items/deadlines got overlooked or lost in the proverbial shuffle:

1.     1. State Liquor Authority New Year’s Eve All Night Permit applications are now available;
2.     2. Temporary Outdoor Dining Permit Registration Deadline is Today;
3.     3. Crucial Hearing on the Future of Outdoor Dining in NYC to be held Tomorrow.

Please see more information about each of these points below, and as always, we’re here to help if you need us.

State Liquor Authority New Year’s Eve All Night Permits

After a hiatus for obvious reasons in 2020, the New York State Liquor Authority is once again offering “All Night Permits” for New Year’s Eve. So, if you want to stay open beyond your normal closing hours this New Year’s Eve, you can apply for the ability to do so. This is a one-night only permit, that can extend your closing hour to as late as 8:00 AM the following day, and is only available once a year (New Year’s Eve).

If you would like us to file this application for you, we’d be happy to do so. We’ve been filing these permits for our clients for years, and with great success. Please contact us by no later than Wednesday, November 11th, 2021, if you’re interested. The State will be incredibly strict with their deadline this year, so we can’t miss the filing window.

For additional information and/or to get the process started, please email our Licensing Department at [email protected].

Temporary Outdoor Dining Permit Registrations

Earlier this year, the State released guidance on how liquor-licensed businesses should proceed when it comes to extending their respective licenses to include temporary outdoor dining situations of any kind, if applicable. As a reminder, TODAY is the deadline for licensees to submit all required information to the State Liquor Authority. If you have not done so already, please complete get on it now. Follow the link below for instructions from the SLA:

https://sla.ny.gov/instructions-continued-and-new-use-municipal-property

City Planning Commission Public Hearing Re: The Future of Open Restaurants

Have you enjoyed your special outdoor dining allowances throughout the last year or more? Would you like them to continue? If so, the time is now to get involved and make your voices heard.

Tomorrow morning, The NYC City Planning Commission is holding a public hearing to discuss the future of the Open Restaurants program. As a refresher, the Open Restaurants program is the one that gave restaurants the right to have outdoor dining – even when they were not properly zoned for Sidewalk Cafes in the pre-pandemic world. This program was single-handedly responsible for saving many businesses throughout NYC over the last 15 months or so, and is still a centerpiece of many businesses’ plans to get firmly back on their feet.

The City is considering a “text amendment,” to allow for this program to continue – in one form or another – on a moving-forward basis, WHICH IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT FOR OUR INDUSTRY. However, there has been a fair amount of opposition from members of the NYC community who argue that our outdoor dining structures are “inconveniences” and “eye sores,” without regard for their overall utility or positive effects, and would like to see the program – in any new iteration – discontinued. Tomorrow this all comes to a head, and the more support for this program that we can gather, the better.

Our friends at the NYC Hospitality Alliance have streamlined things for anyone who’d like to participate. Please see their overview and guidance below:

CLICK HERE to register to testify

IMPORTANT DETAILS

•     • By completing this form, The NYC Hospitality Alliance will register you to testify and you will receive a zoom link the morning of the hearing (Wednesday, October 6th).
•     • There will likely be a number of items on the agenda and a full agenda will be posted here. We expect this public hearing will take many hours. So, while the hearing starts at 10am, plan on keeping the hearing on in the background until you hear your name called. The Hospitality Alliance will its best to inform you of the approximate timeframe of when you will testify.

ABOUT YOUR TESTIMONY

You will be allowed 3 minutes to testify. The following are points you can consider when preparing your testimony. You should explain how:

•     • Outdoor dining has been critical in saving countless restaurants and jobs, EXPLAIN WHY it’s so important to your restaurant(s) and why it will be in the future. Make it personal!
•     • It’s very popular with the customers.
•     • The pre-pandemic sidewalk café programs was too expensive, too much red tape and excluded too many restaurants.
•     • This text amendment is so important because it’s the first step and creating a better outdoor dining system that’s more fair and inclusive.
•     • Recognize that the current Open Restaurants program was created quickly to respond to an unprecedented emergency to help save an industry and city AND when the permanent program is developed it needs to be more standardized and sustainable using lessons learned from the temporary emergency program to address both restaurant and community feedback.

CLICK HERE to read more about the TEXT AMENDMENT and future of outdoor dining.

It’s most important that you testify remotely, but if you cannot you may submit written testimony using the CPC Comments Form on the public meeting page of the Department of City Planning website by clicking here.

This is a big issue, folks. If you can show up, please register and do so. It’s all virtual, so while it may be somewhat time-consuming, hopefully many of you can figure out a way to work it out.

That’s all for today. Keep grinding, everybody.

Joseph