De Blasio Says NYC Can’t Afford to Open Beaches Even If Safe

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city couldn’t afford to open pools this summer, even if it were safe to do so amid the recovery from the coronavirus outbreak.

The city would need to find money to pay lifeguards, security officers and crowd-control workers, de Blasio said during a Wednesday news briefing.

“When you talk about pools, beaches, tennis courts, each thing’s going to be looked at individually,” de Blasio said. “There’s a whole different piece of the equation, which we’ve talked about, which is what can we afford to open, and that’s going to be all about what happens with the stimulus in Washington, whether we even have money to open some of these things, and that’s a big question mark right now.”

The most important question remains how safe it would be to open beaches and pools, even if the city could regulate crowding, the mayor said. “Places where a lot of people might congregate create a real danger,” he said. “We have to know we can manage them properly and there could be proper enforcement and that the time is right. So the indicators will tell us when we can start opening up and we’re going to do it very carefully.”

City officials have been discussing a comprehensive plan for the warmest months, the mayor has said. On April 16, the mayor ordered city pools to remain closed when they traditionally open on Memorial Day, saying “right now we do not have a plan to open the beaches, just like we don’t have a plan to open the pools.”

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