Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

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 Gothamus 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 212-9692.

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 cars sometimes go. Sidewalk dining allowed year-round open streets. Everybody knows these. This is where they like pull some barricades and close the street off for a few hours and you can drag tables. That's also year round and staying, but the sheds need to come down November 29th.

And that goes back to what you mentioned, you know, rats and parking spaces, all the reasons

these are controversial. Making it seasonal was a part of addressing those concerns.

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