Kathleen Irwin Testimony: New York State Restaurant Association

Um, I want to begin by saying I recognize that the institution of a permanent program is a major undertaking, and I want to start by acknowledging some of the things that DOT has done well.

Um, first and foremost, they've been willing to educate and engage with restaurants.

They've provided extensive visual resources online, trainings both in person and online, and have partnered with SBS to promote the SBS financial estimator tool on their website.

Um, that being said, in the rollout, we've seen a number of challenges that have made it both less attractive for restaurants to apply and difficult for those who did.

One of those is that the timing and incentive structure of the application program caused a major backlog, which created an inability for restaurants to plan and invest while waiting to find out if they're approved.

Limited and delayed coordination with other agencies, including the SLA.

I know we just heard otherwise, but that's not the experience that we have heard.

The application process overall being so difficult that many restaurants have been forced to rely on private expeditors to feel confident in their applications.

The seasonality of roadway dining creating a major cost and logistical burden for restaurants who are expected to build, maintain, deconstruct, and store the same set of materials year in and year out.

Finally, inflexible siting with that has limited the ability for cafes to be as they once were, both during open restaurants and even during the sidewalk cafe program.

One example that was mentioned earlier in terms of timeline mismanagement is the fact that the creation of conditional approvals wasn't even announced until February 28th, with approvals beginning to be mailed March 3rd for a March 25th start to build date.

That's three weeks or less for restaurants to find out if they're even allowed to make a major operational and capital investment.

And it's not acceptable given the amount of foresight that we all had going into this.

Moving forward, we have a few short and long-term recommendations for this program.

We expect that the backlog problem will begin to resolve with higher application volumes.

But besides that, we would like to see year-round roadway cafes before.

Thank you.

Okay.

You can say did you want to finish the sentence?

No.

I have like five recommendations, but.

Yeah, okay.

If you could um submit it and we will look at that.

Thank you so much.

And we have to under our rules give everyone the same amount of time.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Hello, Chris.

Oh, I'm not sure.

Good to see you.

Good.

Thank you for everyone and the um the opportunity to present on behalf of Open Plans and Happy National Picnic Day.