With The Greatest Snowfall In Years, New York City struck, Dining Outdoors Shuttered
On the heels of indoor dining being halted in New York City due to a rise in cases of coronavirus. Thanks to the big winter storm hitting the Tri-State area, outdoor dining is also taking a hit.
By the time the storm has ended, there may be accumulations of a foot of snow or more, and where even only an inch is expected, a “snow alert” is activated that allows restaurants to clear or protect outdoor furniture and remove their electric heaters.
As of 2 p.m., outdoor dining was suspended. On Wednesday, when the snow warning from the Department of Sanitation took effect.
For snowplows, narrow side streets have always been a concern, and now many of them have outdoor dining settings that offer an even bigger challenge.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city now has smaller, more agile trucks to handle side streets more effectively, and this is attributed to the pandemic, amid cuts to the sanitation budget this year.
Further Plans For Winter
Further plans include anti-icing therapy that begins before the arrival of the snow. And salt spreaders that are out on the roads.
In New York City, Kemberly Richardson comments on snow plans.
City officials spent the day pleading for New Yorkers to get out of the way of thousands of sanitation workers. Icy weather on the Henry Hudson Bridge leads to a 19-car pileup that left many people wounded.
The MTA was still running on Wednesday evening, amid the wallop of snow.
Interim transit president Sarah Feinberg said that it wasn’t going down all that hard when the storm started. Now it’s very different, it’s coming down very soon, they can’t guess for tomorrow morning. That’s a call they’ll make at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
Meanwhile, after the warning expires, restaurants will be able to reopen. It is expected to be Thursday night but could extend through Friday depending on the storm severity.
Restaurants must eliminate or consolidate buildings. Including barriers, if the forecast calls for a foot of snow or more to take up as little space as possible to make plowing simpler.
Edward Grayson, acting Sanitation Commissioner said that due to the plowing process, it is the worst time ever to suspend outdoor dining. Particularly with these small businesses, which are the flavor of the community in New York anyway, be it in New York or Manhattan or out in the boroughs. With them, they want to work. They are trying to keeping them solvent and sustainable. But well it sure adds a challenge, it’s a challenge to plow through them. So the message this year for our operators is gradual and methodological. If they want to regulate the weight, they want to make sure that they don’t drive too much snow. And just keep on, keep on with their methodology, keep on going with their operation.
This year the city uses a different word, a “winter operations advisory,” anytime the outlook is below an inch of cumulative accumulation.
