Restaurants and bars can stay open an extra hour longer, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday.

Starting on Monday, the 11 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants will be extended to midnight.

Although welcome news, these businesses have been focused for months on working to ease pandemic-related restrictions. However, there is one rule they hope to keep in place.  

Lawmakers and restaurant owners gathered at Savoy Taproom in Albany on Wednesday to call for the passage of legislation that would allow restaurants and bars to continue to serve alcohol to-go for the next two years.

Around 8,000 restaurants closed permanently across the state during the pandemic, according to the state Comptroller’s office.

Jason Pierce, owner of Savoy Taproom, said serving people alcohol to-go when they also order food has helped keep many of these businesses afloat.

“To be able to sustain ourselves with additional to-go alcohol sales could mean the difference between employees being laid off or re-employed or not employed at all,” Pierce explained.

Right now, restaurants and bars can serve alcohol to go, but only until May 6, when Cuomo’s executive order expires.

Dominick Purnomo, owner of Yono’s, said allowing restaurants to continue to serve alcohol to go for at least two more years gives these businesses time to get back on their feet.

“It's a job saver and it's a restaurant saver,” Purnomo said. “Our industry has been battered over the last 56 weeks now and as if it wasn't difficult enough before that, it is becoming incrementally more difficult to operate and own restaurants in the time that has passed. The independent restaurant industry is the largest private sector employer in the United States.”

This bill was originally included in the budget, but was taken out due largely to push back from liquor stores who were concerned that this would cut into their sales.  

Stefan Kalogridis, president of the New York State Liquor Store Association, said despite liquor stores actually seeing an increase in profits over the last year, he believes there are restaurants that have taken advantage of this alcohol to-go order by selling full bottles of alcohol.

“It’s a cycle,” Kalogridis said. “We're going to slow down again and their businesses are going to be picking up again. We all want them to succeed, but a restaurant is not packaging store. We’re a packaging store. So if someone wants a margarita in a can, we sell them already.”

Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association, said that for many restaurants around the state, “sales numbers are still lagging well behind normal year projections. While we hope that alcohol to-go eventually becomes permanent, an extension is our immediate priority."

Assembly sponsor of the bill, Assemblywoman Pat Fahy said that although this legislation was pulled out of the budget, there is a push to get this done before the legislative year ends in June.