Queens restaurant sues over NYC dining restrictions: '500 feet from my location you’re allowed to eat inside'

New York City is the only part of the state limited to only outdoor dining and takeout

A Queens restaurant owner is suing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over the city's mandated dining restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“No one is sure what the reasoning is. The mayor and the governor have made numerous outlandish comments on indoor dining,” Il Bacco owner Tina Oppedisano told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday.

Oppedisano said that they have claimed indoor dining is “not that important and not needed.”

“Just last week, the mayor made a comment saying that indoor dining is only for the middle and upper class. I mean, it’s completely ridiculous, it’s completely unacceptable. Just 500 feet from my location, you’re allowed to eat inside. Once you get into the Queens border, once you get into the five buroughs, you’re not allowed [to dine in]. We were told on July 3rd that we were going to be shut down and that was indefinitely, so, now, all of these business owners, all of these restaurant owners, they are left in limbo.”

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Meanwhile, Rep. Max Rose blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for "actively trying to kill" off New York City restaurants with his coronavirus response and predicted a majority of eateries could be out of business if change doesn't come soon.

Rose, a Democrat who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, took aim at the "idiotic" policy to continue to ban indoor dining at Big Apple restaurants while surrounding suburban regions have opened up in some capacity.

“They are on life support," Rose said Tuesday of New York City restaurants in an interview with Fox News. "Come the fall when the temperature starts to go down, if this is not fixed, you will see the majority of our restaurants go out of business."

James Mermigis, the attorney representing Il Bacco, appeared alongside Oppedisano in the interview, saying that he is working on an “injunction motion to be filed by tomorrow or Friday” in order to “ask for an emergency hearing.”

“The governor and the mayor can produce this science that they are relying on to show us that eating in Little Neck is more dangerous than eating in Great Neck,” Mermigis said.

Mermigis went on to say, “I want to see the science. We’re going to force them to provide the science to show us why it is so dangerous to eat just across the border.”

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New York City only allows outdoor dining and takeout, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo has OK'd the rest of the state to resume indoor eating. De Blasio in August said that he doesn't have a plan to resume indoor dining, citing the ongoing risk of COVID-19. And on Monday, de Blasio suggested the resumption of indoor dining could hinge on the development of a vaccine, which could take until next year or longer.

“We do expect -- and pray for and expect -- a vaccine in the spring that will allow us to get more back to normal,” de Blasio said during a news conference. “But I will absolutely tell you, we’re going to keep looking for that situation where we can push down the virus enough where we would have more ability to address indoor dining.”

Fox News' Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.

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