New York bars struggling to stay afloat should not be required to serve food to drinkers, and instead customers should be banned from standing outside watering holes, a new petition created by a Lower East Side bar owner argues.
The “Seating not Eating” petition, posted on change.org Monday by bar owner Abby Ehmann, claims that the governor’s mandate that bars serve food to clientele when they order drinks places an “onerous burden” on establishments that don’t normally serve food.
“It has no bearing on safety or health. All super-spreader events have been about ventilation … and proximity,” wrote Ehmann, the owner of Lucky in the East Village. “Rather than legislating what customers must order, I believe it would be safer and smarter to require customers be seated while consuming whatever they want.”
The petition received more than 370 signatures since it went up Monday evening.
Bar owners, who were already required by the State Liquor Authority before the pandemic to offer some sort of grub at their establishments, told the Daily News that Cuomo’s new rule is capriciously enforced and overly vague.
The governor announced the food requirement July 16, after bars like the White Horse Tavern had their liquor licenses suspended over flouting social distancing requirements.
Bar owners agreed with the governor that patrons should sit down and drink in a socially distant manner.
“People are trying to meet all these standards but they keep changing,” said Steve Pang, who owns Otto’s Shrunken Head in the East Village and signed the petition. “I believe that if a bar can have a manageable crowd they don’t need to serve food.”
“It has been incredibly unclear what the regulation is. At first ‘Cuomo chips‘ were okay. Now Cuomo says chips aren’t substantial food,” said Heather Rush, who owns The Pinebox Rockshop bar in Bushwick, which serves vegan empanadas.
“I get the seating, which is why I signed the petition. I agree. Let’s just have seated table service. I don’t want to go backwards on the pandemic either,” she said. “The food, I don’t know. I just don’t understand. People sit down, they have a beer, they move on. What am I supposed to do, stand over them and make sure they eat?” said Rush.
“We approved outdoor dining not outdoor drinking, and the former requirement was that they be seated while drinking,” said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo. “Bars ignoring social distancing standards have been ground zero for these clusters. Many other states have taken similar actions to combat this or they didn’t allow bars to be open at all.”
Of 644 compliance checks done Monday night, 26 city bars were in violation, according to the SLA.
A dozen bars had their liquor licenses revoked over “egregious violations of coronavirus-related regulations,” the governor announced Tuesday.
