By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LITTLE ITALY — While the just-approved San Gennaro festival will see Mulberry Street teeming with visitors later this year, some local residents are crying "basta!" because the thoroughfare has become on obstacle course of sidewalk menus.
Dozens of Italian eateries stand shoulder-to-shoulder along a few-block stretch of the street, with outdoor seating, large metal menu holders and restaurant greeters all claiming a piece of the pedestrian passageway.
"They have no regard for people who have to walk back and forth," said Frank Guglielmo, 54, who's lived on Prince and Elizabeth streets nearly his entire life. "It's what happens when you put a lot of people in a restricted amount of space. When you don't have ground rules, you get mayhem."
Guglielmo recently brought the issue to the attention of the police department — which regulates Mulberry Street's notorious restaurant greeters, who loudly try to lure patrons into their eateries — but the continued placement of illegal menus on the sidewalk has seemed to go unpunished, he said.
"Pedestrians don't have right of way on the sidewalk — that's what makes me f-----g nuts," he said, adding that many elderly passersby who need assistance while walking are simply forced into the street.
"I'm not going to walk in the street to get around a sidewalk obstruction that's not supposed to be there. I will knock the f-----g table over, even if there's people there. I'm tried of arguing with f-----g idiots that have no roots here whatsoever."
According to city regulations, display menus are prohibited from standing freely on the sidewalk, and are only allowed if they are flush with the building line.
But that hasn't stopped restaurants from inching farther out on the concrete to try to entice customers.
"The catch is, people feel like it's an interference. To them, they look at it like it shouldn't be in the way," said Jose Valerio, 55, a greeter at the restaurant Buona Notte on Mulberry Street. "I think they're right and they're wrong."
Valerio has previously been busted for keeping his menu on the sidewalk — once getting slapped with a $300 fine for the infraction — but he's gotten wise and now pulls the structure into the eatery's outdoor-seating area when he sees city workers swooping in.
"I think it's a beautiful attraction," Valerio said of Buona Notte's large menu stand, which sat beside him outside the restaurant on a recent weeknight.
"They've been enforcing it. It's not like they're closing their eyes."
But Community Board 2 district manager Bob Gormley disagreed, saying the city has become lax in its regulation because it doesn't want to be seen as anti-business.
"The city in general turns a blind eye to that kind of stuff," he said. "There's no question there's an issue of sidewalk congestion in certain areas. We would like the restaurants to follow the rules and open it up a little bit on the sidewalk."
A Department of Sanitation spokesman said the city has already issued 350 summonses for sidewalk obstructions throughout Board 2's district for the year to date.
Diners such as Andrea Fazzina thought the city should simply prohibit car traffic on Mulberry Street altogether to accommodate the crush of visitors.
"Coming here to Mulberry Street makes me feel like I'm part of a family," said the 35-year-old Brooklyn resident, while recently enjoying a glass of wine at Buona Notte.
"You can't get back what was in the past, but you can't take away their future," he added of the businesses on the block. "These older people — they're just mad because they're old."
Another restaurant greeter said the sidewalk-intruding features come with the Little Italy experience.
"It's part of the local color, what are you gonna do?" said Jay Tsulis, 37, a greeter at Da Gennaro on Mulberry Street, noting he's never been fined.
"This is New York City — every neighborhood has it's own flavor. It's always been like this."
He suggested that some traditions should be left well enough alone.
"One must be really miserable to be annoyed by that," Tsulis said. "You can't do a seven-second detour because it will change your life so drastically?"
But longtime local Guglielmo isn't buying the argument that Little Italy should be allowed to operate on its own terms.
"I'm not going to walk into the street and cause a driver to take defensive action," he said. "I will push hazards out of my way on the sidewalk, and that could lead to confrontation."
