The tables are rolled out into the street every Thursday night in downtown Mill Valley, when the city closes half of Miller Avenue to cars.
The weekly street closure, which lasts through Sunday, allows restaurants to expand outdoor seating areas and lets people roam the road on foot.
But with new coronavirus cases becoming increasingly rare and business restrictions easing, some are ready for Miller Avenue to go back to the way it was.
“The town is looking like a construction zone,” said Margaret O’Leary, referring to the “no parking” signs along sidewalks and the yellow barricades that block off the street.
O’Leary, who opened her eponymous clothing boutique on Miller Avenue 20 years ago, has started a petition asking city officials to end the street closure. She said the program is driving business away.
“This experiment has caused significant hardships to the retail businesses located inside the ‘blockade,’ as these retailers lost their street parking and impeded store access from Thursday through Sunday,” her petition says. “Other downtown merchants and residents have suffered from the resulting traffic delays and confusion. Many residents and visitors simply elected to avoid downtown on the weekend altogether.”
O’Leary is urging city officials to continue allowing restaurants to expand their outdoor dining areas in designated parklets, but to keep Miller Avenue open to cars.
But others favor keeping the street closure. Luigi Petrone, co-owner of Piazza D’Angelo on Miller Avenue, wants the city to close both sides of the street again, which it did over the summer and continued doing into the fall.
“I’ve never seen downtown Mill Valley so alive, and we happened to be in the middle of a pandemic,” Petrone said of the configuration. “It was amazing. People were utilizing the space like it should be used.”
The owners of Piazza D’Angelo have started an opposing petition, calling on the city to keep the program running. Petrone said the expanded outdoor seating area has kept his restaurant afloat during the pandemic.
The City Council is slated to discuss the street closure program during its online meeting starting at 6:30 p.m. Monday. Several residents have written letters to the council in support or opposition to the closure.
“There is certainly a feeling of vibrancy that might have been previously missing,” wrote Morgen Newman, who wants the program to continue. “Starting in the early morning, the benches and tables begin filling up with early walkers, hikers and bikers, and the area only continues to come alive throughout the day.”
Brian Collins, who owns a commercial building on Miller Avenue and rents one of the spaces to O’Leary, wrote that his tenants have been “significantly damaged by the closure.” The building houses two retailers and eight offices.
“They shut down the street for three and a half of the key shopping days,” Collins said in an interview. “That means my tenants don’t have parking, they have no access for their customers and they have no delivery access.”
Collins is urging the City Council on Monday to “move to remove the barriers, lift the closure, and return the Mill Valley square to its decades-long, bucolic, small-town charm so everyone can enjoy it and so all its businesses can all prosper.”
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May 03, 2021 at 01:20AM
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Mill Valley petitioners duel over pandemic street closure - Marin Independent Journal
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