DID puts pressure on sidewalk cafés

As part of an effort to clean up Main Street sidewalks, the Downtown Improvement District is looking for a way to put more pressure on sidewalk café owners.

At a meeting Tuesday, the DID spoke with City Engineer Alex DavisShaw about increasing the cleanliness standards for downtown sidewalk cafés. The DID has prioritized sidewalk cleanliness because the city has not conducted cleaning since 2011.

The DID is also dealing with a tightened budget, and it wants to make business owners play a part in tidying up. Several DID board members believe the outdoor seating has an outsize effect on the status of the sidewalks.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the board asked DavisShaw about adding a requirement to the sidewalk café ordinance that would require a weekly pressure washing of the seating area. That requirement startled Chip Beeman, owner of Pastry Art on Main Street.

“I believe that's quite a bit excessive,” Beeman said. “I believe that even twice a month could be quite a bit excessive.”

Beeman said he received a quote of $65 dollars for a weekly pressure washing, which would total $3,380 annually.

There are currently cleanliness standards for the outdoor seating areas, and businesses have been cited in the past for failing to keep them clean. DavisShaw said the city could not enforce a regulation that required a weekly pressure washing of the cafés, but requiring a monthly pressure washing would be plausible.

DavisShaw said any new standard would need to be clearly defined.

“We need to have some way to check it off, to say yes, this meets the threshold as it’s established in the ordinance,” DavisShaw said.

DID member Eileen Hampshire said the board may be focusing too much on one small component of the overall issue with downtown sidewalks. She urged the board to begin taking action in one way or another, because she feels the sidewalks are the dirtiest of any city in which she’s been.

“I think we need to have more teeth or something,” Hampshire said. “This is kind of like fiddling while Rome burns.”

Standards and Practices
Currently, applications for a sidewalk café permit include this clause regarding upkeep of the outdoor seating areas:

“The permittee shall be solely responsible for maintaining the permit area in a clean and sanitary condition and shall immediately remove trash or debris resulting from the operation of the sidewalk cafe and collect and properly dispose of such debris as may be scattered from within the permit area by patrons or weather conditions. Failure to follow these requirements could result in termination of permit.”

Contact David Conway at [email protected]