Paso Robles removed its parklets last year. Should they come back?
Paso Robles required all restaurants to remove their parklets on Nov. 1, 2021. Now the City of Paso Robles is holding public workshops to determine what — if any — future parklets should have in the city’s downtown.
The workshops are hosted by the Outdoor Dining Ad Hoc committee, which consists of City Councilwoman Maria Garcia and City Councilman Fred Strong and about 10 to 15 community members. The first was held on Tuesday.
Paso Robles City Engineer David Athey said there were 30 permits issued for parklets and roughly 22 parklets recorded in Paso Robles at the peak of the pandemic.
Sometimes the parklets were used by multiple establishments, which is why the numbers don’t line up one to one, he said.
The discussion comes as local cities have been revisiting the parklet concept after its successful use during the pandemic. In July, the San Luis Obispo City Council voted unanimously to make parklets for outdoor dining permanent.
In Paso Robles, however, community members are divided about whether restaurant parklets are a nuisance or should be a permanent fixture in the city’s downtown.
Parklets could compound parking challenges downtown
The top concern among Paso Robles residents was that making parklets a permanent fixture could compound existing problems with parking availability in the downtown area.
The debate fed into an existing conversation about whether Paso Robles should institute a downtown parking program.
At the March 15 Paso Robles City Council meeting, the Downtown Parking Advisory Committee proposed instituting a $2 per hour fee for parking in the downtown area.
Many community members were against the proposal to use parking spaces downtown to drive revenue. The Paso Robles City Council did not come to a decision about parking and opted to resume the conversation at a later date.
Some community members said during the workshop that they felt that restaurant parklets compounded existing parking problems while others said they didn’t notice a difference in parking availability when the parklets were up.
Concerns about the free use of public spaces and the potential value of a parking space in use by a parklet were also mentioned.
Currently, there are 465 parking spots downtown with about 69 of them were used by parklets during the height of the pandemic.
Others felt that it was inequitable for restaurants to have access to parklets while other businesses did not.
“Eliminating parking spaces — its unfair to businesses that can’t take advantage of these services,” Park Cinemas owner John Rouche said at the workshop.
Some proposed giving retailers access to sidewalk space to display their products outdoors to make it fair for all downtown businesses.
Restaurant patrons enjoy outdoor dining and parklets add energy to downtown
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, and many restaurant patrons prefer to eat outside due to COVID-19 safety concerns or because they want to enjoy the weather, restaurant owners at the meeting said.
Carole MacDonal, who owns La Cosecha Bar + Restaurant and Il Cortile Ristorante, told The Tribune in October 2021 that about half of her customers preferred to dine in the parklets she had established at both restaurants.
Others felt the parklets added a vibrancy to the downtown square.
“I would love to see the parklets come back,” Lynn Peel said in a call into the workshop. “The weather is good here more often than not. I’ve been downtown a few time since they’ve been taken down and it looks like a ghost town again.”
Other parklet benefits are that they are family-friendly, allow pet owners to grab a bite to eat with their dogs in tow and allow the city to generate tax revenue from restaurant visitors.
When it comes to options for guidelines for outdoor dining, the top pick was allowing for more dining in Downtown City Park.
Many people said they enjoyed grabbing a bite to eat and a glass of wine from neighboring restaurants and taking it to the park for a picnic.
Other options included setting up sidewalk cafes instead of using parking spaces for parklets, though some had accessibility concerns about that idea.
The Outdoor Dining Ad Hoc Committee will be meeting for a second time to review options. A date for the second meeting has not yet been set.
After that, it will present a policy proposal to Paso Robles City Council.
