A new law set to go into effect in 2025 will ban the use of botted reservations on third-party apps and give law enforcement more tools to go after the black market for exclusive restaurant reservations throughout the city.

The scam involves placing mass reservations using online bots, up-charging for access to the restaurants, and if no sales are made - dumping the reservations and cancelling at the last minute.

Those last-minute cancellations hurt restaurants as prime timetables can go unfilled during hours that are key for an eatery.

"They are cancelling, at like specific times right before we would have a $10 charge within 24 hours. It feels automated. They're cancelling it right on the dot multiple accounts and then sometimes we look to charge them, and it turns out the credit cards are fake," said Thomas Kater, a general manager at Kings Co. Imperial Restaurant in Williamsburg.

He says the problem is prevalent, and the restaurant often does not have enough people to answer phones for all their reservations. This makes online reservations a must, but that now comes with some serious risk.

"If we get that last-minute cancellation, now that table on a Friday night might sit empty for two hours, where it would otherwise be full," Kater said, adding he hopes the new bill can make a dent.

"It would be great to get some relief on this. We are not out to charge customers cancellation fees, but when we go to charge and then it turns out these are fake cards, it’s truly frustrating because we have actually a lot of available reservations," Kater said. “To think some company is out there that thinks our reservations are so valuable they are keeping our own neighborhood out, that's disturbing."

For customers, they hope the bill can help get rid of a costly middleman that has made neighborhood staples inaccessible.

"In Williamsburg, it's like 0% of the time that during normal hours you can find something online. It's really hard to get a table anywhere and to know if it's an actual customer or a bot, so I would love to actually have availability," said Williamsburg resident Davis Erin Anderson.

The new bill, sponsored by Borough Park State Sen. Iwen Chu, and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to take effect in early 2025.