Manhattanites Demand Shutdown of Cafe That Attracts 'Internet People'

The old folks of New York City’s Upper West Side are beyond pissed that people who met using online dating services — one concerned neighbor is calling them “internet people” — are ruining their neighborhood. Wasn’t You’ve Got Mail shot on the Upper West Side?

According to DNA Info, there was a rousing community board meeting on the Upper West Side where residents of a self-proclaimed “bedroom community” said they didn’t want a new bar, Riposo 72, to have a bunch of outside seating. The reason? They feared they’d have to mingle with weirdos who find dates on the Internet.

“I have seen people say, ‘I met you on the internet,’ and you’re putting that on the sidewalk?” said one resident Al Salsano incredulously. “I don’t want children walking near ‘internet people’ meeting.”

These Internet People also like to drink outside, apparently.

“Have you ever gone to any of the sidewalk cafes in this neighborhood? Do you find them all rowdy and people staggering out of them all the time?” asked board member George Zeppenfeldt-Cestero.

Resident Chris Horwitz retorted that he wouldn’t know because, “I don’t go out to meet people I found on the internet.”

Even worse than Internet People are college students from nearby Fordham University that also might be inclined to tart up the neighborhood, which is blocks away from Central Park, by drinking and hooking up outside with people they’ve met in real life and, scandalously, on the Internet! But what about public decency?

“This is how it happens,” she said. “Once you have a cafe serving drinks on the street, then you have a precedent.”

Yes, of generational and moral decline … thanks to Internet People.

The rub here is that 1998’s You’ve Got Mail, the movie that made it socially acceptable in pop culture to date online, was shot on the Upper West Side! Cafe Lalo, the dessert shop where Tom Hanks sees Meg Ryan and realizes the woman he loves online is the woman he hates in real life, is on the Upper West Side! The Upper West Side literally made digital courting famous! The Upper West Side is for Internet People!

Ultimately, Riposo 72 was cleared to open with 16 outside seats for Internet People and possibly Fordham’s drunken co-eds. Technology wins?