The San Mateo City Council wants to close at least one or two downtown blocks to cars to accommodate outdoor dining, and for restaurants throughout the city to be able to serve diners in parklets in public parking spaces.
That was the direction given to staff at a meeting Monday, with B Street between First and Baldwin avenues being eyed for a road closure. A refined plan for outdoor dining will be proposed to the council at its June 15 meeting.
As with many other cities, outdoor dining is being pursued to provide additional space to restaurants to serve as many diners as possible while social distancing restrictions are in effect. Without outdoor spaces, restaurants, known for operating on thin profit margins, will be unable to reach full capacity.
San Mateo is finalizing its plan for outdoor dining as restrictions on the food industry continue to be lifted in San Mateo County. A new health order that takes effect June 6 allows restaurants and other food facilities previously licensed to provide sit-down food service to offer outdoor, sit-down meals with restrictions.
Councilmembers have agreed restaurants should be permitted to also sell alcohol outdoors, and during the meeting amended the city’s regulations accordingly. But restaurants will still need approval by the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control agency, or ABC, to serve alcohol outside.
To offset the parking lost by closing a road to traffic, the plan is to install additional short-term parking spaces as close as possible to restaurants for pickup and delivery.
Closing streets to traffic is estimated to cost roughly $20,000, primarily for the barricades and insurance policies. The plan is to keep the barriers and outdoor dining areas in place for as long as the program is in effect and not take them down and set them up daily or throughout the week.
Closing roads to traffic downtown was not restaurateurs’ preferred approach to outdoor dining. A recent survey with a range of options to support was sent out to restaurateurs. It generated 200 responses with about 74% of them saying they were interested in sidewalk dining, 51% wanted parklet dining and just 36% want full street closures. The primary concern with full street closures is they might complicate access for customers and deliveries.
But councilmembers are pushing to try our at least one full street closure despite the survey results.
“I really think this is something that’s not just for our restaurants, it’s for our community,” said Deputy Mayor Eric Rodriguez. “It’s really a once-in-a-generation time where we can test and be wrong or we might be right and will wonder why we didn’t do this 20 years ago. I’m guessing it’s the latter.”
Establishing an outdoor dining program has not been an easy task. Officials during the meeting discussed a long list of obstacles, including how to ensure appropriate levels of social distancing.
Councilman Rick Bonilla said dining tables should be as many as 10 feet apart rather than the standard 6 feet to accommodate both people sitting at the tables and those walking in between them.
“There needs to be 10 feet between tables to be safe and to observe health orders now,” he said.
During the meeting, shopping centers and 25th avenue were also discussed as potential locations for outdoor dining, though it doesn’t appear the city is moving forward with the latter option.
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June 05, 2020 at 06:45PM
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San Mateo council considers street closures, parklets | Local News - San Mateo Daily Journal
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