City moves closer to making street dining permanent

If approved on second reading, eating in the street will require permanent installations and cost restaurants $35 per day per space.

By Andrew Warfield
| 5:00 a.m. September 7, 2023

Duval's restaurant at 1435 Main St. is one of several restaurants in downtown Sarasota taking advantage of parklet dining. The city allowed restaurants to place tables over parking spaces during the pandemic.

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Outdoor dining enthusiasts are one step closer to a permanent policy to allow them to eat in the streets of downtown Sarasota.

By a 3-2 vote on first reading, the City Commission approved an ordinance to permit restaurants to occupy parking spaces on streets adjacent to their businesses for “parklet” dining.

As the split vote would suggest, there was considerable debate among commissioners with Jen Ahearn-Koch and Debbie Trice citing fairness to retailers and other merchants who rely on parking convenient to their businesses. Commissioner Erik Arroyo, Vice Mayor Liz Alpert and Mayor Kyle Battie countered that the atmosphere created by the outdoor dining experience stimulates activity, serving a public benefit.

“I am opposed to the private use of parklets by restaurants,” Trice said. “I don't believe that is for a public purpose. It will lead to loss of parking spaces in a high-demand area and it disadvantages the non-restaurant businesses.”

With a 17% cap on parking spaces occupied by parklets on any given block, that comes to a total of 21 parking spaces available for use by restaurants with downtown street parking frontage. Temporary parklets currently occupy 11 parking spaces in downtown.

Alpert said there is plenty of available parking in downtown and that a vehicle in a parking space in front of a store doesn’t mean its occupants are shopping there.

Parklet ordinance highlights

No live entertainment, amplified music or mechanically amplified sound of any nature are permitted in the parklet.
Stoves, ovens, hot plates, beverage coolers and similar restaurant equipment may not be placed in the parklet. Additionally, no privately owned trash cans shall be placed in the parklet.
No tables and chairs or other furniture may be chained or bolted together as a unit or affixed to the sidewalk or ground surface. Space heaters may be placed only in uncovered areas open to the sky.
Parklets may be open and operational the same hours as the qualifying business, except that under no circumstances shall a parklet close later than 2 a.m. or be open earlier than 7 a.m.
Beer, wine or other alcoholic beverages may be consumed in a parklet provided that they are purchased from the adjacent qualifying business while the purchaser is seated in the parklet.

“I think it's a better public use than somebody's car sitting there, And when there's a car sitting there, nobody else can use it,” Alpert said. “We have other parking that people can utilize. There is no guarantee to anyone that they can park right in front of a business. When you go to the mall, you don't park right in front of the store, so I don't see it as different. I do see it as a benefit.”

Fees restaurants must pay for parklets will come before commissioners on a separate ordinance, but all in — including application fees, code enforcement and annual fees to compensate the city for lost parking revenue, etc. — the proposed cost is approximately $35 per day per space per day.

A parklet license is good for two years and can be granted or revoked at the city’s discretion. The installation must conform to a detailed set of standards for design and safety and be either permanent — as in an anchored deck — or portable for removal during tropical weather events. Gone will be the ability to cordon off a parking space with metal barricades, as some restaurants have done.

Ahearn-Koch and Trice cited the opposition to parklets by the Downtown Improvement District Board of Directors, and summoned DID Business Manager Julie Ryan to the dais to relay its objections.

“It is important to have as much parking as possible for the downtown merchants, as well as the fairness issue,” Ryan said. “The feeling is that the restaurants can have those parking spaces where a merchant cannot utilize those parking spaces, but primarily it comes down to the perception of not being able to park in downtown.”

The schematic shows parklet installation standards for occupying parallel and angle parking spaces.

Started locally during the height of the pandemic to help restaurants stay in business, parklets proved to be a popular dining option for many downtown eateries that race a competitive disadvantage with their suburban counterparts that enjoy patio space unavailable in downtown.

Some restaurants still recovering financially from COVID-era hesitancies and restrictions have come to rely on the extra seating parklets afford, and they successfully lobbied the city to extend the policy until a permanent ordinance could be considered. Even well before the pandemic, the parklet concept had gained popularity across the country and is now part of the dining and entertainment fabric in cities such as Cincinnati, San Francisco, Brooklyn, Seattle, St. Pete Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

Permanent parklets will not be permitted on St. Armands Circle because of a parking bond that directs paid parking revenues toward the parking deck there.

In addition to a second reading, still to come before commissioners is the ordinance to set the parklet rates to be paid by restaurants.

author

Andrew Warfield

Andrew Warfield is the Sarasota Observer city reporter. He is a four-decade veteran of print media. A Florida native, he has spent most of his career in the Carolinas as a writer and editor, nearly a decade as co-founder and editor of a community newspaper in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.