When the city discussed a plan to make outdoor dining permanent, opposition grew louder in affluent and restaurant-rich neighborhoods such as West Village.

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This is an unexpectedly noisy incident. In the summer, about 100 people held a hearing in Manhattan’s West Village, eager to discuss the division of communities in New York City.

Thing at hand: outdoor dining.

When city officials proposed a plan to make it permanent, residents waved slogans with slogans such as "outdoor dining is home invasion." They booed an official who called outdoor dining a great success. When another official said that the sidewalks in New York had become one of the best dining options in the world, the audience exclaimed: "Mouse!"

"We are going crazy," a resident said to warm applause. "Every quality of life problem you can imagine will bring us emotional distress."

The battle in West Village marked a challenge for city officials because they seized an opportunity to codify one of the most transformative changes in the city’s streetscape in recent decades. Starting later this month, officials will hold hearings across the city to allow residents to tell what they think outdoor dining should look like in the post-pandemic world.

New York marks a critical transition to normalcy, and now faces the same question as cities such as Philadelphia and Atlanta are weighing proposals to maintain al fresco dining: Which emergency innovations brought about by the pandemic should be a permanent legacy?

In New York, the plan became a debate about who should own the streets and sidewalks. Last month, a group of residents sued the city, detailing 108 pages of complaints about outdoor dining. The neighbors confronted the restaurant owner and called 311.

After the coronavirus closure of indoor dining, outdoor dining began as an emergency plan in June 2020. More than 11,000 restaurants participated, and the city estimates that the program saved 100,000 jobs.

Proponents say that outdoor dining is an important reimagining of the street that has saved an industry where hundreds of restaurants have been permanently closed. Officials say the plan creates a fairer experience that is almost only available in Manhattan; there are now more than 650 family sidewalk cafes in the Bronx, compared with 30 before the pandemic.

Emily Weidenhof, director of public space at the Ministry of Transport, said: “It’s already important to be able to think that the roadside is more valuable than a separate parking space.”

However, opponents say that living on a street with outdoor dining means tolerating late-night noise, rodent attacks, and mountains of garbage. These structures block sidewalks, bicycle lanes, emergency vehicles, and parking spaces. Critics view this as an unfair land grab and enrich the hotel industry at the expense of other small businesses.

The Ministry of Transportation, which is expected to monitor and implement a permanent outdoor dining plan, is negotiating legislation related to its implementation. A permanent plan will begin in 2023, and the plan first requires the city council to approve the new district.

Urban planners stated that they will use cities like Barcelona as a model to create larger pedestrian-only blocks in communities and strengthen law enforcement on issues such as noise and cleanliness. Officials said they have stepped up violations of restaurants, including demolishing unused sheds.

Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hotel Alliance, said: "We want law enforcement, we want compliance, because we don't want bad guys to ruin all good restaurants that try to do the right thing." This is lobbying support. Outdoor dining.

Eric Adams, the Democrat recently elected as New York City's next mayor, has said that he would keep outdoor dining but re-evaluate the safety and spacing of the structures.

Mr. Adams described the catering industry as the "weathervane" of the city's economy. The catering industry brings the flow of people into the central business district, tourist center, and residential area.

According to data from the Office of the Auditor General of New York State, in the decade before the pandemic, restaurant work was a particularly important source of employment for immigrants and low-wage workers, and its growth rate was twice the overall growth rate of private sector jobs.

According to a December 2020 poll, 64% of registered New York City voters stated that outdoor seating in restaurants is an important use of roadside space near them, including 78% of Manhattan voters.

Despite this, people’s resistance to outdoor dining is increasing. From car owners in Harlem, the reduction in parking spaces has a disproportionate impact on blue-collar workers, to the elderly in Chinatown, who say they are difficult to be blocked. Move on the sidewalk.

Some opponents characterize this issue as one of the class struggles.

"This is a group of elite people who can sit outside and eat a main course for $40," said Jan Lee, the owner of two restaurants in Chinatown, one of which does not have outdoor seating. "They need to rethink their selfishness in this city."

At a recent nine-hour urban planning hearing, opponents of outdoor dining testified that restaurants had benefited from federal funding and no longer needed help, saying they were greedy. Megan Rickerson, owner of the Boerum Hill Someday Bar in Brooklyn, said it was frustrating to hear these sarcastic comments.

"I don't think people understand the profits of our operations," she said. "I haven't paid myself for a long time to ensure the survival of my bar and staff."

Some of the fiercest opposition came from West Village, a downtown neighborhood famous for historic buildings, gay bars, left-leaning politics, and lively restaurants. This neighbourhood is part of the Manhattan Community Council 2, which has the largest number of sidewalk cafes in New York City.

Unlike some other residential areas, the restaurants, bars and apartment buildings on Xicun Street are often sandwiched in narrow blocks and adjacent to each other. The noise of outdoor diners is more likely to penetrate the bedrooms and cause tension.

Last month, a group of West Village and other residents recruited a civil rights lawyer to sue the city for outdoor dining, claiming that it failed to fully consider the plan’s environmental impact and violated state law.

A plaintiff, Mary Ann Pizza-Dennis, said that she spent up to an hour searching for a parking space nearby. (The Mayor’s Office stated that outdoor dining occupies approximately 8,550 on-street parking spaces, which is less than 0.3% of the city’s total parking spaces.)

Pizza-Dennis, who works as an accountant, believes that outdoor dining is the reason why she saw a mouse in the yard for the first time in 15 years of living in West Village. She likes to dine outdoors, but added: "I don't eat outdoors nearby because I oppose them."

But Jessica Radow, a West Village resident who works for a software company, said that outdoor dining made her feel safer at night and was a relief on desolate streets during the worst of the pandemic.

"There are a lot of people out there, no matter what the changes, they won't like it," she said.

Many Xicun residents expressed doubts about the city’s commitment to strengthen law enforcement, saying that they were often indifferent when they kept dialing 311, the police station and the Ministry of Transportation.

Stu Waldman said he initially supported the plan, but opposed it after the city government announced the permanent plan. He believed that the plan was made hastily without sufficient public opinion.

"A lot of sleepless nights about this matter are not just because of the noise, but because of the loss of citizen participation," said Mr. Waldman, a retired children's book publisher.

Mr. Waldman said that he bought a decibel meter and regularly recorded the noise level at the door, equivalent to the volume of a vacuum cleaner.

One night, the noise was so unbearable that Dashiell Kupper, who lived in the West Village home where he grew up, met 14 diners from Connecticut outside the window. When asked what he said to them, he replied: "There may be nothing to print on paper."

Mr. Cooper is a youth basketball coach. He said that outdoor dining has attracted so many out-of-towners. He felt that they did not invest in the neighborhood, which bothered him.

Aaron Hoffman, the owner of the sports bar Wogies, said he sympathized with fears that nearby weekends had become too noisy, but described the opponents as a minority voice and did not reflect the popularity of outdoor dining.

“Only complainers will appear at these community hearings, so only one side will be heard,” said Mr. Hoffman, who has lived intermittently in Nishimura for 20 years. "Happy and contented people don't do this because they have a life. They have other things to worry about."

Gabriel Stulman, who owns three restaurants in the West Village, said that these enthusiastic residents and restaurant owners actually have many of the same goals.

"I also want clean sidewalks, because who wants to eat in the trash can?" he said. "Don't act like I don't care about the neighborhood, but you care."

After New York City announced last month that propane heaters could no longer be used to provide warmth for outdoor seating, New Yorkers will test their willingness to dine outdoors this winter, citing fire safety considerations. Electric heaters with lower power are still allowed.

The cold weather worries West Village resident Sacha Langer, who works for a food startup and often dines outdoors. She said that although she lived near several restaurants on the third floor of an old building, she was not disturbed by the crowd. She described the neighborhood as "normal New York noise."

"I think now if there is no outdoor dining, it will be completely dead," Ms. Lange said.