Restaurants fear dining deck fee increases to force closures
by Kevin Cody
Over two dozen restaurant owners and their employees met at the Lighthouse Cafe on Pier Plaza Tuesday afternoon to discuss a new city ordinance regulating outdoor dining. The ordinance is expected to address sizes, locations, and city lease fees for street dining decks, and dining patios on Pier Plaza, and city sidewalks.
The council is scheduled to review, and possibly vote on the ordinance at its Tuesday, April 25 meeting.
Restaurant owners, and employees at Tuesday meeting, included (seated in foreground), Baja Sharkeez, and Tower 12 co-owner Ron Newsman, and Hennessey’s Tavern owner Paul Hennessey.
The restaurant group’s primary concern was the lease fees that the council directed staff to write into the ordinance.
In January, the council set dining permit fees at $1.50 per square foot. The city has issued approximately 60 permits for dining on outdoor city property. Those permits expire at the end of this month
A city staff report presented at the January council meeting stated other cities charge as much as 300 percent more than Hermosa is charging. Redondo Beach charges its restaurants $2 per square foot for outdoor dining decks. Manhattan charges $3 per square foot, according to the staff report.
Hermosa’s dining permit revenue would almost triple from $582,00 annually to $1.6 million annually were the city to apply market rates to both the pre pandemic and the temporary pandemic dining patios on public property, the January staff report stated.
Chamber president Jessica Accamando, who organized Tuesday’s restaurant meeting, said a fee exceeding $2 per square foot will deter at least some restaurants from continuing to offer outdoor dining.
Accamando’s finding was based on a chamber survey of downtown businesses, she said.
The survey found that three Hermosa restaurants are listed for sale and the owners of five other restaurants are contemplating selling, Accamando said.
Lobster and Beer owner Dana Ireland gestures toward Mayor Raymond Jackson while advocating for upgrading the city’s dining decks.
Dana Ireland, who is opening Lobster and Beer in the former Hot’s Kitchen/Stanton location on Hermosa Avenue, said street dining decks designed during the pandemic need to be modernized.
“Dining decks are our front door. The city told me no dining deck TVs. Why not? People want visual stimulation. The city said no to dining deck bus stations. Why not?” Ireland said.
Paul Hennessey, owner of Hennessey’s Tavern, questioned why the council has discussed tiered lease fees, based on hours of operation. Councilmembers have contended restaurants that stay open past midnight are more of a police problem than restaurants that close early.
“That is totally false,” Hennessey said. “I’d like to hear what the police officers think of restaurants that stay open late. We police and maintain the downtown,” he said.
Baja Sharkeez and Tower 12 owner Greg Newman said late night policing problems in the downtown receded with the ban on smoking, and the popularity of cell phone cameras.
“People know if they misbehave they’ll be videoed,” Newman said.
Lori Ford, owner of Gum Tree Cafe and Gifts proposed a portion of the outdoor dining fees be allocated to a fund for upgrading the downtown.
She noted that only one of the Pier Avenue palm trees wrapped in lights still lights up. The lights were paid for by a $40,000 grant from Athens Services in 2022, when the trash hauler was bidding on a renewal of its contract. Most of the lights have since burned out.
Underground owner Seth Weiss noted that outdoor dining in most other cities is on sidewalks, not in the street.
“Hermosa Avenue doesn’t need the center divider,” he said. He said removal of the divider would allow sidewalks to be widened.
On Thursday, the chamber board is scheduled to review its outdoor dining permit recommendations to the city council.
Among them, Laura Pena, owner of BioRenew on Pier Avenues, said at Tuesday’s meeting: allow dining patios to extend 25 feet out from Pier Plaza restaurants; allow two parallel parking spots, or three head-in parking spots for Hermosa and Pier avenue dining decks; extension of the current permit program through the summer; and formation of an advisory task force.
Pena said the chamber’s proposed square foot lease rates are $1.50 for sidewalk dining, $2.50 for street dining decks, $3 for Pier Plaza, and $5.50 for Pier Plaza restaurants that close after midnight. ER