It's the Brian Lair show on WNYC.

I'm Amina Serna, a producer for the show, filling in for Brian today.

More than 13,000 restaurants took advantage of outdoor dining during the pandemic,

but in August, after a couple years of debate in the media and city council about rats and

parking spaces, the city finally put new rules in place. Restaurants that wanted to keep

outdoor dining had to apply to a new program with fees and strict design rules or remove their sheds completely.

So far, almost 3,000 restaurants have applied to the new program, with far more restaurants interested in dining on the sidewalk itself versus dining sheds in the street.

To make sense of what all this means,

I'm joined by WMYC and Gothamist Arts and Culture Reporter,

Ryan Kailath.

Hi, Ryan.

Welcome back to the show.

Hey, Mina.

Listeners, we do have just a few minutes for maybe one or two calls,

but for those of you who do or for those of you have to work with outdoor

dining sheds, restaurant workers, bar owners, what changes are your establishments planning

to institute when you build your new outdoor dining shed this spring? Give us a call at

212-433 WNYC. That's 212-9-6-9-2. So only restaurants with

approved permits can continue to have street sheds. But even those approved restaurants have to

take their street setups down for the season by late next week.

So what's the goal of doing this seasonally? Yeah. So the deadline to come down for the season is

November 29th. And to be clear, this is just the sheds, right? The ones that sit in the street where

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