Council Member Restler Disputes DOT's Statistics on Pandemic-Era Participation

Is that am I using the right?

Do I have the right denominators and I can't.

So we have basically um 2600, 2,603 restaurants are able to operate right now.

Okay, so that's not 80% of 4,000.

So and I can explain, and I ran through these numbers earlier.

So 263 out of 13,000 was our peak at the height of COVID.

Is that right?

No, council member.

Let me explain this.

Between our at the height, it was between six and eight thousand restaurants.

That was the end of COVID.

That was the peak?

No, that was the peak.

And what I'll tell you about the 13,000 number, those are restaurants who may have signed up.

They may or may not have set up.

We don't know.

They may have gone out of business.

That was not uh the level of the city.

But even if they went out of business, they would count.

I don't understand.

You're saying what I'm telling you is that between six and eight thousand businesses had dining setups, so this and we have about four thousand applications to date.

So we actually have quite a good percentage of the city.

The data and that has been widely reported in just about every outlet in the city of New York that up to 13,000 establishments have participated in outdoor dining, that's inaccurate.

What we what we explained is at the height, it was six to eight thousand.

So why is there such an extraordinary discrepancy?

This has all been under DOT's purview.

Why would only half as many?

Because 13,000 at some point may have signed up to participate in the program, but we don't think there was ever a time that 13,000 were set up at that moment.

Okay.

I believe the hospitality alliance also referenced the six to eight thousand number in their tests.

As as the peak at the end, and I believe they referenced that number at the conclusion of the COVID period.

That was the number that was in effect.

It was not the end of, it was during the peak.

Right.

That's not what their testimony says, but beside the point, their testimony references the 13,000 figure that we're all familiar with that has been widely reported in the press that's been noted about.

So you're saying the 13,000 figure is inaccurate?

That never we didn't have third, or we had 13,000 restaurants over the world.

So the ad might not be the useful number for the purposes of calculating the success at this point in time.

So even still, let's use your numbers, which I would argue with, and I don't I I'm I'm not really sure at all are accurate, but we'll accept your numbers that a peak of let's say 8,000 was the total number that operated any given time.

We're now at 2600, right?

So just accepting your numbers, that means we're at less than 30% of the peak number today.