Council Member Brewer Questions DOT on Fee Structures and Indoor Rent Comparisons

Or is there some way that you could limit the fees that people have to put in as a restaurant owner in order to put that structure up?

Because that was a pretty high number.

Okay, so what I'd like to do is um give some examples of the fees.

And first and foremost, I want to say that the fee outside is about 25% of what an indoor lease or rent would cost a restaurant.

And obviously, it should be much less because of weather and other factors, but it it is very reasonable where in some cases restaurants are able to make quite a bit of money using their outdoor dining.

Um, so I we have two examples.

If we have a minute, we'll show you.

Suppose it doesn't rain.

Correct.

So that's why it should be, of course, um, much lower, but at the same time, it's very, very valuable space for restaurants.

Some restaurants double their space by having outdoor dining, which is which is really quite tremendous.

So we have an example for you a Crown Heights restaurant on Franklin Avenue.

They have 104 square foot roadway setup, they have 12 seats, and basically they're paying the revocable consent is about $832 per year.

It comes out to about 29 cents per seat per day.

Okay, and then for reference to give you a sense of what type of restaurant this is, the average entree is about $18, the average drink is $12.

Then we have a Soho restaurant example.

So this is a large setup.

It's both sidewalk and roadway.

It has 105 seats.

They pay $23,454 per year, which is a dollar and fifty-three cents per seat per day.

But then again, for reference, um, every entree is over $40, and the average drink is over $20.

So I want to try to put it in perspective.

It's by a private entity.

There needs to be a fair charge for that space, and we think these are more than reasonable costs.

Okay.

My last question is of course on the upper west side, I think you're charging too much compared to other locations.

So I am gonna try to lower that to make it more comparable with other areas because not every restaurant is huge, not every restaurant is as big as some of the ones you just mentioned in Soho.

So that I think needs to be addressed.

I will I don't know that you could comment on it.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair.

Thank you so much.

And now Councilmember Narcis.

Thank you, Chair.

And uh one of my concerns was the fees, but you answer that.