Council Member Louis Questions DOT on SLA Coordination for Outdoor Alcohol Service

It's unfortunate the commissioner couldn't be here, but glad to see you and your team here.

And I just want to echo some of the sentiments of my colleagues.

We appreciate the efforts of DOT.

Penny has been very resourceful, but we do believe that there's still flaws with this program.

So we're going to continue to echo that and mention it, but we do hope for change, especially change in agency.

However, the Department of Transportation has not clearly articulated what is required for these businesses to lawfully operate under the state liquor authority.

So I wanted to ask what coordination, if any, is currently in place between DOT and SLA to inform businesses of their obligations when they want to modify their operations of outdoor alcohol service.

And I have a health and safety question.

I have some other businesses in my district, particularly in East Flatbush, who are unsure how the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene regulations apply in the context of outdoor dining.

So I wanted to know what ongoing interagency communication mechanisms exist to ensure small businesses are not receiving conflicting or incomplete information from multiple city agencies.

So one is on health and safety standards, the other one is uh inter-agency coordination.

Okay, I'll answer the second one.

Michelle won't answer the first one.

So as far as DOHMH, Michelle mentioned that we do have quarterly meetings with the agencies to make sure that we are coordinating carefully.

Um we haven't heard that restaurants are confused about the DOHMH guidelines of serving outdoors, but if there's any more to that, um, and we'll go back and we'll double check with the staff, or if you have any more information, if you let us know, we'll make sure we clear up any confusion because we don't want them to be confused between the agencies.

In terms of the state liquor authority, we've had a number of conversations with them.

They've actually been very collaborative, um, and they are recognizing the conditional approvals we've issued for roadway cafes as sufficient approval to move forward with the modification to the liquor license that restaurants need to serve alcohol outside.

All right, so what specific efforts is DOT undertaking to ensure businesses do not fall in non-compliance due to this lack of coordination, if any?