Bar, Restaurant Coronavirus Curfew Will End: Cuomo

NEW YORK CITY — The City That Never Sleeps soon will live up to its name again after a year without nightlife.

A 12 a.m. curfew for bars and restaurants will end May 15 for outdoor dining, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.

The curfew for indoor dining will end May 31, according to a governor's office release.

Not only that, regular bar seating in New York City can restart May 3.

Cuomo, in a statement, said recent hopeful trends in the coronavirus battle prompted the changes.

"Everything we've been doing is working - all the arrows are pointing in the right direction and now we're able to increase economic activity even more," he said. "Lifting these restrictions for restaurants, bars and catering companies will allow these businesses that have been devastated by the pandemic to begin to recover as we return to a new normal in a post-pandemic world."

The change may also get ahead of another substantial change for the city's and state's eateries — state lawmakers' plan to end an unpopular food-with-drink rule.

Cuomo issued the rule last summer under sweeping emergency powers granted during the pandemic. But lawmakers pulled those powers back amid Cuomo's many scandals and have since set their sights on the food-with-drink rule.

Still, many in the city's bar and restaurant industry have considered the curfew the biggest damper on business.

As the state loosened capacity restrictions in March, Kevin Fitzgerald, who co-owns The Hawthorn in Chelsea, told Patch that ending the curfew would be better news.

New Yorkers are "night people" who bring in big business, Fitzgerald said.

"If they extended the opening hours that would help bars and restaurant a hell of a lot more than expanding the inside," he said.