NYers’ Appeal to Pols: Bring Back Indoor Dining
Hats off to Karol Markowicz (“We’ve Had It!,” PostOpinion, Aug. 24).
The failure to reopen indoor dining very soon will kill a lot of small businesses, which are the lifeblood of the city.
Gov. Cuomo, the blame-shifter, who could overrule Mayor de Blasio in the blink of an eye, will keep dodging the issue for political reasons.
What makes the current outdoor-dining situation intolerable is the blatant injustice involved: If you’re on a corner lot, you can set out 10 tables, but if the guy next door has a hydrant in front, he’s out of business. Talk about discrimination!
John Pugmire
Manhattan
What New York City needs is freedom.
The King of Albany, Cuomo, forbids indoor dining in the restaurant capital of the world but permits it elsewhere in the state. Why? He wants the rich to return to the city, but he gives them no reason to come back.
Why not live in the Hamptons if New York City’s premier cultural attractions — Broadway, restaurants, clubs, bars, museums, etc. — are closed?
We are going on Week 23 of a petty dictator’s whims and edicts. Enough is enough. M.B. White Queens
Why do de Blasio and Cuomo reference restaurant-reopening issues in Hong Kong and Europe while ignoring successful ones in nearby Yonkers, Huntington, Buffalo and elsewhere in New York?
Doctors, dentists and hair salons check patients’ and customers’ temperatures with touchless forehead thermometers prior to admitting them for procedures.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have New York City restaurants follow
the same protocol with contact info for tracing purposes for both patrons and employees, rather than continue to shutter more than 25,000 established businesses?
Cuomo begged New Yorkers to return to the city. Give us something to return to, and we will come. Andrew Fremer
Middletown, RI
In response to the urgent call for New York City to open for indoor dining, Mayor de Blasio said: “If folks miss the theater, if they miss the indoor dining, those things will be back. They’ll be back next year at some point.”
This will sound the death knell of the restaurant, pub and bar industry in New York City.
Each day, more places are shutting down for good. How will they survive until “some point” next year with no indoor dining allowed?
And there will be no al fresco dining from November until late March. The mayor clearly does not care. RIP, NYC. Dennis Middlebrooks
Brooklyn