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The demand was driven by REQUIRED construction to meet safety measures. Instead of the attack on 'free money' he thinks he is making he is showing that his company profited from big government (IE rent seeking).

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I am sorry, I don't understand- can you explain this? What construction was required for safety measures? Especially such that required wood specifically?

In NYC, some restaurants could reopen and conduct business as usual if they were classified as outdoor venues. This interacted oddly with another regulation that let a restaurant count as “outdoor” if part of its seating area had outdoor seats, so you had a lot of restaurants in the middle of the bustling city build these gazebo-type structures that put some number of tables right on the sidewalk in the midst of pedestrian foot traffic.

For a small restaurant owner, the combination of these two loopholes created an intense pressure where building out this outdoor seating was simply a requirement of doing business

You really think this causes lumber prices to fly through the roof though? It may have been a factor but it seems a stretch that NYC restaurants would increase demand that much.

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