New York City is a city running scared and businesses are hurting in the nation's most populated city.
NYC is hurting because of COVID restrictions put in place by state and city government leaders. 87% of bars were not able to pay their rent in August. Hotel occupancy in the Big Apple is hovering around 7%. Yes, 7%. As many as 200,000 bar, restaurant and hotel employees are out of work. The city, under Mayor Bill de Blasio, doesn't care.
They say potentially losing thousands of businesses is worth the cost to keep the coronavirus from spreading across the city again. The city's health department is now threatening to shut down businesses that have been allowed to reopen in COVID 'hot spots.'
Not only that but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is only allowing restaurants to open for in-door dining at 25% capacity.
The hits keep on coming.
In the summer, New York City did allow many restaurants across the city to open for outdoor dining, but aren't sure if they are going to allow patrons to continue to dine under the skyscrapers after Halloween.
Why? Climate change.
From the New York Post:
Yet Mayor de Blasio is still dithering on allowing outdoor dining to continue after Oct. 31, even as Boston, Philly and other nearby cities have plans already set. The major issue seems to be letting them use outdoor propane or natural-gas heaters, because of greenhouse-gas fears. Really.
Not only are mayors and governors across the US are using their emergency powers to drag out the fear of COVID, they are also using COVID as cover to combine 'crises' as de Blasio is doing in NYC because outdoor heaters. They are drunk on power and as we all know, no one makes good decisions when they are drunk.