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New York will require naloxone in restaurant and bar first aid kits starting in December

From Dec. 13, New York bars, restaurants and nightclubs must keep naloxone in their first aid kits. In Bushwick, 209 licensed restaurants and food and beverage businesses are affected.

Two photos side by side: at left, the corner window of a bar at night, lit with string lights and the words Cold Beer; at right, the sign of The Craic over a stairway entrance on a brick building by a tree-lined sidewalk.

New York will require naloxone in restaurant and bar first aid kits starting in December

From Dec. 13, New York bars, restaurants and nightclubs must keep naloxone in their first aid kits. In Bushwick, 209 licensed restaurants and food and beverage businesses are affected.

New York will require naloxone in restaurant and bar first aid kits starting in December
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Starting Sunday, Dec. 13, nearly every bar, restaurant and nightclub in New York State will have to keep naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug sold as Narcan, in its first aid kit. In an email to food and beverage businesses, the city Department of Small Business Services said employers must include an opioid antagonist such as naloxone wherever federal law already requires them to stock first aid supplies.

The rule reaches hundreds of businesses in North Brooklyn. In Bushwick, 209 establishments hold active State Liquor Authority licenses as restaurants or food and beverage businesses, and Bushwick, East Williamsburg, Williamsburg, South Williamsburg and Greenpoint together have 901, a Bushwick Daily count of the authority’s license records found.

Dot map of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, East Williamsburg and Bushwick showing 901 dots for licensed restaurants and food and beverage businesses, clustered along commercial streets; labels give Williamsburg 340, Bushwick 209, East Williamsburg 176 and Greenpoint 171.
Restaurants and food and beverage businesses with active State Liquor Authority licenses in North Brooklyn, as of Oct. 23, 2026. Map: Bushwick Daily; data: NYS Liquor Authority via data.ny.gov

The requirement rides on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, which requires many workplaces to keep first aid materials on hand. If a workplace already has to have a first aid kit under OSHA rules, it now also has to keep naloxone in it. According to the Small Business Services email, that covers “virtually all restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and other hospitality-focused businesses in New York.”

The rule comes from a state law sponsored by state Sen. Nathalia Fernandez that Gov. Kathy Hochul signed on Dec. 12, 2025, adding a section to the state labor law…

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Filed underNarcan Behind Every Bar / Nathalia Fernandez / New York State Department of Labor

Bushwick Daily News Desk. Neighborhood news, politics, real estate, and business coverage produced by the Bushwick Daily newsroom.

Produced by Bushwick Daily News Desk

Neighborhood news, politics, real estate, and business coverage produced by the Bushwick Daily newsroom.

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