It wonât be last call for many of the cityâs most popular restaurants and bars after all.
The City Council axed a portion of a bill to regulate hotels that would have doomed scores of top-rated eateries and rooftop bars — heeding outcry from chefs and restaurant owners, as well as a harsh rebuke by The Post.
The flashpoint bill sponsored by Council member Julie Menin requires hotels to renew licenses every year and to implement hiring and safety measures long sought by the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council union.
A section of the proposed law — which hotel-industry advocates denounced as a ânuclear bombâ — would have spelled the end of restaurants that are inside hotels but leased to, or managed by, outside companies.
Such so-called âthird-partyâ operations would come under control of the hotels, and their employees would become hotel union members if the dining rooms included âpublic accessâ to the rest of the hotel.
Nearly all do — such as Jean-Georges at the Trump International, Daniel Bouludâs Le Gratin at the Beekman and Cafe Carmellini at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
Several, such as Wolfgang Puckâs CUT at the Four Seasons and new Bourbon Steak at the Essex House, even sit in the hotelsâ lobbies.
Tom Colicchio, who runs Temple Court at the Beekman, had blasted the bill on X as âa disaster.â
New York City Hospitality Alliance executive director Andrew Rigie warned it would âessentially terminate countless leases and management agreements between third-party food and beverage companies and the hotels in which they operate.â
But after the backlash by the Hospitality Alliance and a New York Post column, the Council decided to spare on-site restaurants from the other provisions.
Now, hotel workers covered under the bill âshall not include cooks, stewards, bartenders, serversâ and others who âprimarily work in food serviceâ — regardless of whether theyâre âdirectly employed by the hotel or by another person.â
Rigie said, âAfter we explained the threat to independently owned restaurants and bars in hotels, and their workers, [Menin] Â amended it so they will remain open with absolutely no change to the way they have successfully operated for many years.â
Menin told The Post on Monday the threat to restaurants was âan unintended consequenceâ of the original bill.
She said once it was called to her attention, âWe met [the objection] quickly.â
Menin rescheduled until an unspecified date in the fall a public hearing on the entire bill that was originally set for last week — which could have paved the way to a vote this month in the Council, where enough members were in support to make it law.