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Thread: NY pub sells 'Cuomo Chips' to comply with governor's regulations

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    NY pub sells 'Cuomo Chips' to comply with governor's regulations

    https://nypost.com/2020/07/17/pub-se...th-booze-rule/

    All that and a bag of 'Cuomo Chips.'

    A New York pub has figured out a cheap and easy way to comply with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's order that bars sales of alcoholic beverages without food: simply selling them a $1 bag of potato chips.

    The governor's new edict says patrons must be seated and order a food item in order to get drinks as part of an effort to curb large booze-fueled gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    In upstate Saratoga Springs, Harvey's Irish Pub Owner Matthew Bagely immediately put 'Cuomo Chips' on customers' tabs ' so they don't have to pay for a full meal.

    'I mean why not, they're his chips, they're his rule so he might as well get some recognition and acknowledgment for another little hurdle we have to jump through as business owners,' Bagely told CBS6-WRGB in Albany

    'For the time being until we have more information ' that's food. And you can buy it for a dollar,' he said.

    The new guidance states: 'Purchase of a food item which is consistent with the food availability requirement of the license under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law shall mean that for each patron in a seated party, an item of food must be purchased at the same time as the purchase of the initial alcoholic beverage(s).'

    'Food items intended to compliment the tasting of alcoholic beverages, which shall mean a diversified selection of food that is ordinarily consumed without the use of tableware and can be conveniently consumed, including but not limited to: cheese, fruits, vegetables, chocolates, breads, mustards and crackers.'

    Cuomo senior adviser Rich Azzopardi said Friday that buying $1 chips complies with the food-requirement rule.

    'It's consistent with the guidance ' but you have to be seated,' Azzopardi said.

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    Bars restricted from selling chips with booze to get around Cuomo rule

    https://nypost.com/2020/07/22/ny-bar...nd-cuomo-rule/

    This will really put a chip on New York bar owners’ shoulders.

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made it even harder for cash-strapped watering holes and restaurants to churn back to life — by declaring that a bag of chips is no longer enough to comply with the requirement that they serve food with booze.

    His State Liquor Authority reversed course with that revised edict posted late Tuesday, which requires they sell more substantial food with alcoholic drinks to be in compliance with the recent executive order.

    Cuomo last Thursday issued that rule, as well as a statewide ban on walk-up bar service, as part of his crackdown on violations of social-distancing rules.

    According to the new SLA guidance, a bag of chips or nuts does not meet the food requirement, but “sandwiches, soups or other foods, whether fresh, processed, precooked or frozen,” do pass muster.

    “Other foods,” according to the SLA, “are foods which are similar in quality and substance to sandwiches and soups; for example, salads, wings, or hotdogs would be of that quality and substance.”

    “However,” the guidance says, “a bag of chips, bowl of nuts, or candy alone are not.”

    That updated guidance appears to be in response to a clever upstate bar owner who added a $1 serving of “Cuomo Chips” to every initial drink order. The new rule actually contradicts what a Cuomo official said Friday about the chips, telling The Post that would comply with the food requirement.

    “The purpose of the requirement that food be sold with alcohol is to permit outside and limited indoor dining (outside of New York City), with alcoholic beverages, while restricting the congregating and mingling that arise in a bar service/drinking only environment,” the SLA said.

    The new rule, the SLA tells restaurants and bars, is a public health measure aimed at preventing crowded booze fests that could spread COVID-19.

    The agency adds, “A drinking, bar-type experience often involves or leads to mingling and other conduct that is non-compliant with social distancing and the use of face covering and is therefore not yet a safe activity during the current health emergency. The spikes/resurgence of COVID-19 cases that this has caused in other states is something that New York must avoid at all costs.”

    The SLA says pub or restaurant owners should not be looking for a loophole.

    Adam Humphrey, the co-owner of Harvey’s Restaurant and Bar in Saratoga Springs that introduced the “Cuomo Chips” on the menu, said the anti-chips rule is “just another hoop to jump through.”

    “It’s definitely a burden on everybody. It’s a struggle and I don’t think it’s about people not complying,” said Humphrey, 28.

    “Our chips come in frozen. They are kettle chips and we cook them,” said Humphrey, who believed the chips were still in compliance with the new rules, but the SLA told The Post they weren’t.

    Big Apple barkeeps on Wednesday slammed Cuomo for the strict food rules.

    Raffaello Van Couten, the owner of Dolly’s Swing and Dive Bar in Williamsburg, said when he heard about the new regulations, he and many other area bar owners’ first response was: “I can’t believe this is f–king happening.”

    “It just seems it came out of left field for everyone,” he said. “Bottom line, it’s pissed off a lot of people.”

    A bartender, who would only identify himself as Joe, at Turkey’s Nest Tavern in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, said, “We have to waste money on getting a hot dog machine, microwave — it makes no sense.”

    “They’re making it [the rules] up on a whim, and pretty much everything they’re doing is targeting bars,” Joe griped.

    Cuomo has gotten tough on liquor-licensed establishments after hordes of patrons started gathering outside Big Apple bars without practicing social distancing or *wearing masks.

    On Tuesday, the governor announced the SLA indefinitely suspended the liquor licenses of three restaurants and bars in Queens, including two in Astoria, that drew large crowds of partiers.

    Cuomo, speaking on WAMC radio Wednesday, said, “We opened bars, restaurant for outdoor dining … What the bars did, was they turned outdoor dining into outdoor drinking and that’s what’s building these big crowds in front of these bars where you’re getting 100, 200 young people just drinking.”

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    The most ridiculous foods that bars are serving to comply with Cuomo’s mandate

    https://nypost.com/2020/08/10/the-mo...uomos-mandate/

    Would you like a bouillon cube with that beer?

    These New York City watering holes have been getting creative with their meal offerings to obey Governor Cuomo’s statewide mandate that bars must accompany alcohol purchases with substantive food — and not just chips.

    In a scramble to comply, some pubs have seriously elevated the stakes for bar food while others are currently offering various modern-day equivalents to the legendary “Raines” onion sandwich, a comically unappealing response to the booze-restricting New York State liquor tax law of 1896, also known as the Raines Law.

    Thirsty patrons in the East Village may find their drink order accompanied by Lunchables, a single sliver of cheese quesadilla or H Mart dumplings cooked in a hot dog steamer, bar staff and customers told The Post.

    Patrons of a Ridgewood joint said one spot is offering “soup” consisting of hot water and a bouillon cube. A nearby bar is also serving — despite its full menu — a $1 gluten-free vegan taco consisting of a single corn tortilla, bar-goers said.

    In Bushwick, patrons can get gazpacho or a dry cup of ramen at certain locales, tipsters said. Farrell’s Bar & Grill in Windsor Terrace has a whole new menu consisting of hot dogs, chips and salsa — and even a “combo meal” with a hot dog, chips and salsa. One Williamsburg pop-up has pizza rolls.

    Multiple venues that shared their food offerings with The Post requested anonymity despite having already passed recent New York State Liquor Authority inspection, citing a fear of provoking Cuomo or suddenly finding themselves not in compliance with constantly changing guidelines.

    And since the Gov scrapped chips as a menu item, establishments have figured out other cost-effective alternatives.

    “There’s a reason why they give you a cheese sandwich in Central Booking — it’s cheap,” said William Eidenback, the manager of Do or Dive. At the Bed-Stuy bar, the first sammie is free for customers, after which they cost $1 each. Those who want their drink but not their legally required sandwich are encouraged to leave it at the community fridge around the corner, “so we’re not just wasting food for the sake of an executive order,” Eidenback told The Post. Hot dogs and chips are also available.

    “That we’re a bar with free popcorn has been our calling card in past years, but obviously that’s not enough now, so we came up with something easy to make and shelf-stable,” Kirk Struble, owner of Park Slope’s 14-year-old watering hole Fourth Avenue Pub, told The Post about its new peanut-butter sandwich offering. “People treat it like a joke, but then they come back for more.”

    A jelly-only alternative is available only for those allergic to peanuts. While the sandwich isn’t a traditional meal match for any of the pub’s 27 draft lines, Struble said it pairs quite well with their W?lffer Estate Dry Ros? Cider.

    At beloved 52-year-old Lower East Side staple International Bar, owner Molly Fitch has offered $20 military field rations long before COVID-19.

    “We have always sold MREs. People just don’t order ’em. They can, but they don’t,” she told The Post. “But [the new law] is mandating they have to order something.” Now, she’s also serving $3 sandwiches featuring house-cured ham from the East Village Meat Market and has shrimp Cup-A-Soups and single-serve oatmeal on the way. “The sandwiches are really good, I think we’ll probably keep ’em after this is all over,” she said.

    While Cuomo has specifically given his blessing to soups and sandwiches despite revoking potato chips, what else is considered “substantive” food in his eyes is increasingly confusing, bar owners said.

    “Every authority I’ve spoken to is unclear as to what constitutes a meal,” said Abby Ehmann, the owner of Alphabet City bar Lucky. “It’s upsetting to me that instead of helping us they’re actively working against us.”

    A week after Ehmann launched a “Seating Not Eating” petition demanding Cuomo roll back his mandate, the State Liquor Authority suspended Lucky’s liquor license following a single warning for not serving food — despite Cuomo promising bars could have multiple opportunities to adjust to the new rules.

    The communication failure has left the already-devastated service industry further in shambles.

    “Everyone’s so afraid,” she told The Post.

    Before her license was revoked, Ehmann had a clever plan for a new meal offering — baloney on bread. But she’d call it a Raines Law sandwich.

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