A bus you can eat pizza in is the stuff dreams are made of. Sadly New York City officials don’t seem to think so, as a Brooklyn pizzeria is in trouble for trying to get around outdoor dining laws by using a school bus parked in front of the establishment.
L’Industrie Pizzeria in Brooklyn needed more dining space for customers, as the small shop had limited room for people to sit and eat. According to New York’s ABC7, the owners thought it would be a cool idea to expand onto the street in front of the shop by using a converted school bus.
“We saw that it was a cool idea, you know, to buy a bus and then park it legally in the street,” Co-owner Massimo Lavegia said.
“When you’re a small shop like this you fit 7 to 8 people and you get an extra 20 to 30 seats it makes all the world of a difference,” Baglivo said.
L’Industrie co-owner Massimo Lavegia says the bus had been renovated with new lights, seating and solar panels to power the lights. The bus has been parked on the street since October, and from what Lavegia told ABC, there’s nothing special about it from the outside, it just appears to be a bus parked along the city street. “We move like two days a week for street cleaning and it was just something natural,” Lavegia told ABC, “You know, people don’t even ask. They just walk outside the pizzeria and they get inside the bus.” Unfortunately for the pizza shop, the attention the bus has been getting has caught the interest of the New York Department of Transportation, and it’s all because of a recent city rule.
New city rules required roadway outdoor dining sheds to be taken down by November 29.
Restaurants that keep up sheds without permits could face strict fines of $500 for a first offense, and $1,000 for any more offenses until the shed is removed.
Under legislation passed by the City Council, sheds will be allowed to go back up on April 1 and remain until Nov. 29, but it will have a much different look and feel.
The guidelines are strict – no sides, a smaller footprint, and the structures have to be easy to assemble and take down.
They will also have to be approved by the city’s Department of Transportation.
As a result of the rule, over 13,000 restaurants in the city have been ordered to dismantle their outdoor dining areas. L’Industrie’s bus wasn’t approved by the Department of Transportation, so the shop was issued a warning. Luckily Lavegia says that they may have found a loophole for the bus: It’s technically not a structure or a building. “I mean we can’t have a structure. It’s not a structure. It’s a legally parked car. Just so happen people to eat pizza in it,” L’Industrie’s other co-owner Nick Baglivo told ABC.
The shop needs the extra space, and both owners say if they have to remove the bus, it’s going to cost them a lot of their business. “When you a small shop like this, you fit 7 to 8 people and you get an extra 20, 30 seats. It makes all the world of a difference. It’s not going to be something affordable for us to keep like 30 or 40 employees and not have enough space. You know, the business is going to slow down for sure,” Lavegia told ABC.
