Ask anyone what the biggest problem facing restaurants today is, and they’ll inevitably say the same thing: bots, specifically those ones that are always scooping up online reservations at places like Carbone, Polo Bar, downtown’s Polo Bar clone Corner Store, Cote, and Don Angie. At some of New York’s trendiest restaurants, tables — besides a few strays at opening and close — seem to disappear within ten seconds.
Now, Governor Kathy Hochul has finally done something about this crisis: As Eater NY reports, she’s signed the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act into law. Through the law, which was passed by the State Legislature over the summer, Hochul promises that the state will “put an end to the predatory market” so that ordinary people can eat at these trendy restaurants. Through platforms like Resy, resellers snatch up reservations using bots, then peddle them to consumers who fork over hundreds to thousands of dollars for tables.
Of course, there’s the question of enforcement and how the state will go about stopping people from selling reservations entirely. As Luke Fortney noted in a story about the reservation-trading group #FreeRezy, people have been selling reservations online for at least a decade. Apps have made this easier, but it’s nothing new. Once the law goes into effect, it will prohibit third-party services from listing, advertising, promoting, or selling reservations without a written agreement with the restaurant, which means that pay-for-play services like Dorsia can continue to do business, and restaurants can still set aside reservations for customers who possess certain credit cards. Gray-market resellers who violate the law can be fined up to $1,000 for each violation, and individuals who are charged by these resellers can take them to court to recoup the cost of their Polo Bar reservation. Regardless, Hochul can now do something about the other big problem facing New Yorkers: TikTok-induced lines at neighborhood places we used to be able to get into.
