Outdoor dining a hit, but outdoor retail?
Some owners say using sidewalks won’t help recovery
Hoping to survive the economic toll of the pandemic, nearly 11,000 restaurants are now part of New York City’s outdoor dining program — a program so wildly popular that Mayor Bill de Blasio made it permanent.
With that kind of success, the mayor turned his attention to another popular activity: shopping. In late October, he announced the Open Storefronts program, which allows retailers to use their sidewalk space to conduct business outdoors.
But so far, the program is a dud: As of Tuesday morning, only 563 businesses had applied. De Blasio has said 40,000 businesses are eligible to participate.
There was a lot going against it. Business owners said the program was complicated, costly and too little, too late. It was scheduled to end Dec. 31. Only 10 businesses on Staten Island had applied, and most applicants were in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Some business owners said they were turned off by the rules, including space restrictions and a prohibition on heaters, a primary draw for outdoor dining as the weather grows colder. Others said they could not afford to pay employees to stand outside in the cold to watch over merchandise.
Several store owners said that unlike outdoor dining, the customer demand was not there.
“People have to eat, they have to socialize, but they don’t necessarily have to buy clothes,” said Liz Murphy, the owner of Slope Vintage in Brooklyn.
A spokesman for the mayor, Mitch Schwartz, said in a statement that the city was proud to see that some businesses were taking advantage of the program.
“Two things have been clear throughout this pandemic: Small businesses need support, and New York City’s recovery depends on creative uses of the outdoor urban landscape,” he said. “Open Storefronts merges both.”
Murphy said she put two racks of clothing in front of her store this summer before the mayor unveiled Open Storefronts. Her sidewalk setup increased foot traffic but did not increase her sales.
Outdoor retail “isn’t going to save the company,” said Murphy, who did not apply to the program. “It’s not going to make my sales go up 20 percent. All it’s going to do is say to someone, ‘Hey, we’re open,’ but I could’ve just gotten a neon sign for the same amount of money that would’ve attracted the same number of people.”
While the program is wide-ranging — including clothing and food stores and repair shops but also personal care services and even laundromats and dry cleaners — many retailers
failed to see how it made sense for their business.
“The customer experience of visiting stores on Fifth Avenue is exceptional and based on what we know about our shoppers’ habits,” Jerome Barth, president of the Fifth Avenue Association, said in an email. “They prefer the personal touch of walking into a store and enjoying that special degree of care.”
Still, some business owners were hopeful, willing to try anything to stay afloat. With the holiday shopping season underway, retailers are increasingly anxious about recouping losses incurred during the pandemic. According to a report by the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business group, approximately one-third of the city’s 240,000 small businesses may not survive the pandemic.
When Ann Cantrell, owner of Annie’s Blue Ribbon General Store in
Brooklyn, heard about the retail program, she jumped at the chance to apply.
“I just want to remain relevant and top of mind
for our customers,” Cantrell said.
Being outside “increases awareness and opportunity to be closer to the customer.”