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It’s no picnic on Front St.

The Brooklyn Paper

Those picnic tables at Front Street Pizza, which have been providing a spot for noshers since showing up unannounced four weeks ago, will disappear as soon as the weather gets nasty, said owner Larry Leonardi.

Believe it or not, some neighbors have actually been complaining that the tables, which take up much of the narrow sidewalk in front of the shop, are an obstruction.

But the complainers aren’t ruining it for everyone else, Leonardi said. The tables were always set to have a limited run.

“We put out these tables for the DUMBO Arts Festival last month and the weather has been so nice that we just left them,” said Leonardi.

But now that the weather is about to turn cold (as if!), the tables will go back to the Office of Emergency Management, which loaned them to the pizzeria in the first place.

Still, the complaints stick in Leonardi’s prodigious craw.

“This never would have happened 20 years ago,” said the pizza man, whose family has owned Front Street Pizza for 20 years.

He saw the complainers as ants intent on ruining everyone’s picnic. He’s not alone.

“When I come down here for lunch, it’s packed inside, so I come out here and sit and it’s great,” said Ruben Aminov, a paralegal. “The benefits of having outdoor seating outweighs whatever costs there are for the loss of sidewalk space.”

Reader Feedback

Law-abiding citizen says:
I love the food, the service, and the relatively reasonable prices at Front Street Pizza, but surely someone like the paralegal quoted in the article should be aware that sidewalks are public property and that restaurants need to get permits to have tables set up directly outside their property, not on the middle or other side of the sidewalk. OK for a weekend public event, not ok for longer. Otherwise, anyone who feels like it could set up anything anywhere. New Yorkers seem to particularly (but certainly not uniquely; e.g. present U.S. President and his administration)have an attitude, let's ignore the law when we feel like it and it's to our advantage, and see how long we can get away with it, and bully anyone who disagrees.
Nov. 1, 2007, 3:01 am

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