By Amelia Roth-Dishy

Mayor de Blasio has launched the Open Storefronts program to let stores sell their wares outside. The city hopes the program — like outdoor restaurant seating — will give the stores flexibility for small businesses to safely attract shoppers as the holidays approach.

“Stores will be able to display merchandise, complete transactions, and provide areas for customers to line up, as long as the business meets the eligibility criteria identified by the City,” the Lincoln Square BID said in a press release.

Businesses have to preserve an 8’ clear pedestrian path and conduct their activity no more than 5’ from the edge of the property. The city calls that the “Outdoor Storefront Activity Zone.” Stores may self-certify online that their setup fulfills these requirements.

The mayor’s office estimates that Open Storefronts will impact 40,000 businesses and support over 450,000 employees. The program began on Friday and is slated to run until December 31st.

But you wouldn’t know it on the Upper West Side. A mildly haphazard qualitative survey conducted by the Rag on Friday afternoon found little, if any, new commercial sidewalk activity happening outside Upper West Side retail establishments.

Most employees the Rag spoke to had not heard of the program or of any initiatives by management to pursue it. At the BlueMercury on 77th and Amsterdam, “corporate” hadn’t said anything about it. Employees at West Side Kids said to come back when the owner was there, but that they hadn’t heard anything. And employees at the Sill and the Strand were doubtful it would happen at their places of work.

Tracy Morse, the manager of the Down and Quilt Shop on 85th and Amsterdam, had indeed heard of the program and thought it was a wonderful offering to business owners. “Any way you can grab people is the best,” she said. But Down and Quilt was already pioneering outdoor sales back in Phase 2 of the pandemic lockdown, as the Rag reported in June.

“We had a table outside with all of our goods and we would literally come to the door and show people,” Morse said. “Now that it’s getting colder, it’s a little more difficult to do that.” She still conducts business outside on an ad hoc basis if customers are uncomfortable entering the shop.

There was little evidence that stores were jumping at the opportunity on its first day. Monica Blum, the president of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District, told us “so far we have not heard of any but perhaps it is too soon.”

Time will tell whether neighborhood businesses embrace the program, particularly as temperatures drop and stores throughout the Upper West Side develop their strategies for welcoming customers inside at lower capacities.