Parklet dining gets six-month stay as city cooks up permanent policy

As the March 31 sunset for parklet dining draws near, the Sarasota City Commission instructed staff on Tuesday to further develop a potential permanent program to permit restaurants in downtown and at St. Armands Circle to occupy street parking spaces for outdoor dining.

The COVID-era program that helped restaurants stay in business by adding seating outdoors received a three-month extension in December, time to allow City Attorney Robert Fournier to craft an opinion on the legal aspects of parklet dining.

He found that a number of cities in Florida have implemented programs for restaurants to continue the practice.

On Tuesday, commissioners unanimously approved directing staff to issue a six-month extension of parklets and Fournier to draft an ordinance for consideration. The action also includes a town hall session to gather public input.

Fournier told commissioners an ordinance should include a specific set of design and engineering standards for restaurants to follow. Currently, parklets range from metal barricades surrounding a parking space to permanent-looking installations that evoke an outdoor extension of the restaurant. 

“A lot of places have particular design standards. Some require a certain type of platform be elevated for safety, limitations on the kind and placement of furniture, ADA compliance, specific minimum distance from curbs, specific barrier requirements,” Fournier said. “What I would envision if this went forward would be some kind of a manual or set of rules prepared by engineering that would be incorporated into an ordinance that someone who got permission to do this would have to comply with.”

Jen Ahearn-Koch pushed her fellow commissioners for hard data to back up anecdotal remarks that parklets benefit surrounding businesses and not only the restaurants that use them. Both the Downtown Improvement District and St. Armands Business Improvement District boards of directors, she noted, have consistently opposed parklets. 

“I am in support of gathering information to make a well-informed decision,” she said. “I will support the motion because I hope it will gather information and data for us to base a decision on, but generally I would like to base my decision on something concrete.”

One objection is the loss of parking spaces near the doors to other downtown businesses, particularly during the day when some parklets are not in use. 

“This is a usual refrain in cities across the country where if you take away any parking at all, the businesses say this is hurting us,” said Vice Mayor Liz Alpert. “But what they find is when you create this atmosphere like the parklets create, the businesses find that they benefit. People think that if we don't have (parklets) then their customers are going to be able to park right in front of their store. That's not true. You never can expect that your customer is going to be able to park right in front of your store.”

Currently, more than a dozen restaurants in downtown and at St. Armands are permitted for parklets, each occupying one or two parking spaces. The current extension requires restaurants pay $25 per parking space per day.