Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Food
NYPD To Target Nine "Bar-Heavy" Neighborhoods Including UES, East Village, Williamsburg, Astoria
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 27, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Sam Horine/Gothamist
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 27, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Wednesday that the NYPD will be targeting certain "bar-heavy" neighborhoods around the city as the weather warms up and more people begin to make their way outdoors for drinks and socializing. The nine neighborhoods he named are: the Upper East Side, East Village, West Village, Lower East Side, Williamsburg, Long Island City, Astoria, Hell's Kitchen, and City Island. He added that more neighborhoods could be added to the list "according to what we see on the ground."
This announcement follows several incidents in which New Yorkers were seen buying to-go cocktails from bars and then lingering "to sip drinks on packed sidewalks and soak up the lively scenes," as the NY Post reported. After photos of those crowded areas were published, de Blasio said, “I’m not comfortable at all with people congregating outside bars,” and directed the NYPD to focus on "problem" areas.
“We’re not going to tolerate people starting to congregate. It’s as simple as that,” de Blasio said. “Please share with us those locations, and we will deal with them immediately."
A spokesperson for the NYPD told Gothamist, "The NYPD will continue to promote the city’s public education and awareness campaign, 'Take Out…Don’t Hang Out,' which began before the Memorial Day weekend and provides helpful social distancing guidelines for restaurant and bar takeout. Going forward, the department will share this important information in neighborhoods throughout the city, including those visited last week.”
The scene on the LES on May 17th, 2020
De Blasio was also asked about the ongoing question of creating more outdoor space for restaurants and bars to reopen as the city begins to near the first phase of reopening in June. He reiterated that it's an idea the city is actively looking into, but made it clear it wouldn't be happening immediately.
"We're looking very intensely at what we can do with bars and restaurants, but with a safety first attitude," he said. "We've got a lot to figure out in terms of social distancing, face coverings, protocols, and what amount of capacity you could create to make it worthwhile, because bar and restaurant owners have made it clear they need a certain level of capacity to make it worthwhile."
With the NYC bar and restaurant industry in financial freefall and the prospect of social distancing restrictions continuing throughout the summer, restaurateurs and bar owners have been pushing hard for the city to find a way to let them reopen, even partially. Officials including City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, as well as the New York City Hospitality Alliance, have thrown their support behind the effort.
Johnson has acknowledged the complexities of safely reopening restaurants, and the need for having very specific protocols in place: “We’re gonna have to be very detailed in what we think is safe for [restaurants], and not push the envelope in a way that would feed into another spike or expose these workers,” he told Grub Street. “It’s gonna require creativity and doing things differently — a little bit of trial and error.”
At today's press conference, de Blasio was asked about the possibility of expediting a restaurant reopening plan, which cities like San Francisco have done. Like Johnson, the mayor emphasized the difficulty of making restaurants safe for everyone with social distancing guidelines in place.
"I would love them back up and running immediately," he said. "But the safety ramifications of bars and restaurants are very different than phase one industries—phase one is construction, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, but only with things like curbside pick up. It's calibrated to make sure that as we bring back hundreds of thousands of people, we do it safely and don't hit that boomerang. Bars and restaurants implicitly come with much closer contact, we have to figure out how to do it right, how to enforce, how to make it viable."
With 70 and 80 degree weather starting to hit the city, de Blasio has been criticized for not implementing more plans to deal with summer, including opening the beaches. As epidemiologist Julia Marcus wrote in The Atlantic recently, telling New Yorkers to stay home during the summer is akin to promoting abstinence-only education: it “is not just ineffective, but it’s been associated with worse health outcomes.”
Tagged
COVID-19
coronavirus
bars
reopening
restaurants
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE food
Why NYC restaurants are playing coy about sustainability
Though it has multiple benefits, the practice remains popular for one basic reason: it saves money.
By
Samantha Dady
Published Oct 26, 2026
Where are the cheapest drinks in NYC? A new report details the city's average prices.
The median price of a cocktail in the city is now $16, and $9 for a draft beer.
By
Hannah Frishberg
Food
Where are the cheapest drinks in NYC? A new report details the city's average prices.
The median price of a cocktail in the city is now $16, and $9 for a draft beer.
By
Hannah Frishberg
North African restaurants are rare in NYC. These 10 are the best.
By
Robert Sietsema
10 dishes that demonstrate the delicious diversity of curry in New York City
By
Robert Sietsema
Frozen yogurt is back in New York City. So are the super long lines.
By
Sonia Rao
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .