YOU’RE A MEAN ONE
Cuomo the Grinch who stole Christmas as he bans indoor dining (again)
Despite the fact the practice accounts for 1.43% of COVID cases according to his own studies, Gov. Cuomo yesterday said he’s banning indoor dining in New York City restaurants starting Monday — dealing another startling blow to businesses and workers trying to survive the pandemic.
You can forget about enjoying any restaurant-quality roast beast this holiday season.
Gov. Cuomo played Grinch on Friday by declaring he would again ban indoor dining in the Big Apple due to the spiking COVID-19 pandemic.
Although he admitted that less than 1.5 percent of new cases were due to restaurant dining, Cuomo insisted he still had to put the brakes on indoor eating starting Monday.
“The hospitalizations have continued to increase in New York City,” Cuomo said on Friday. “We said that we would watch it if the stabilization, if the hospital rate didn’t stabilize we would close indoor dining. It is now.”
But statewide contact-tracing data released on Friday showed that restaurants and bars account for just 1.43 percent of recent known COVID-19 exposures, while private household gatherings are linked to the majority of infections at 74 percent.
The decision to ban indoor dining yet again left restaurant owners simmering.
“We have families. We have kids at home. Christmas is coming. This is going to be the worst Christmas ever!” said Jack Triolo, a manager at Patrizia’s on Staten Island. “We bought food for five, six days, then he comes and says, ‘We’re shutting dining rooms down.’ ”
“We don’t know if we can survive,” he said. Marco Chirico, owner of Marco Polo Ristor
ante in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said: “We’re pissed off. We’ve been following everything that they gave us — the guidelines . . . from A to Z.”
Cirico said he felt like the restaurant industry has “been picked on.”
“It’s just not right you have small businesses that are day to day surviving . . . and day to day trying to feed their staff who are trying to feed their kids,” he said.
Richard Jurmark, general manager of EJ’s Luncheonette on the Upper East Side, said Cuomo’s decision to shutter indoor dining was “premature.”
“It’s a knee-jerk reaction,” Jurmark said. Cuomo, speaking at a virtual press briefing, justified the move by citing state data that showed New York City’s daily COVID-19 hospitalizations increased by 596 from Nov. 27, when there were 1,072 patients, to Thursday, when there were 1,668.
Takeout, delivery and outdoor dining will still be permitted. Indoor dining has been operating at 25 percent capacity in New York City since it was allowed to resume on Sept. 30 — following a six-month shutdown due to the coronavirus crisis.
Andrew Rigie, head of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, said: “Governor Cuomo’s announcement to once again shut down indoor dining in New York City is at odds with the state’s own data.”
Cuomo acknowledged that the indoordining restriction would cause “economic hardship” for already struggling eateries.
“Yes, there will be economic hardship — the 25 percent to zero percent [capacity], but we have compensated in other ways,” Cuomo said, adding that outdoor dining in the city has been “aggressively expanded.”
State Senate Republican Minority Leader Robert Ortt said the move “will stick a fork in an already suffering industry.”
In a tweet, Mayor de Blasio called the decision “painful” but said he “fully support[s]” it.