By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
SOHO — Famed eatery Cipriani wants to add a sidewalk café at its West Broadway location.
The addition would require an exemption from zoning laws, which do not currently allow sidewalk cafés on West Broadway, where the restaurant is located.
Cipriani’s management will present its proposal to Community Board 2 on Thursday night.
In 1979, sidewalk cafés were banned in many of Manhattan’s neighborhoods, including Chinatown, Midtown and SoHo, because sidewalks in those areas are already saturated with pedestrian traffic, according to the city department of planning.
Zoning was somewhat modified in 2004 to allow sidewalk cafés to operate on certain side streets, but West Broadway was not included. The omission of West Broadway in the revised rules followed recommendations by Community Board 2 that said the avenue's sidewalks were already “very congested” and had “a continuous line of street vendors.”
Community Board 2 officials worry that giving Cipriani an exemption will increase pedestrian traffic.
“The restaurant opening up an individual set of a few tables is not a big deal in and of itself,” said David Reck, chair of Community Board 2’s Land Use and Business Development Committee.
“Yet the zoning implications are a big deal. We need to ask what the ramification are in the big picture.”
Cipriani did not immediately return calls for comment.
