Although sitting down for dinner with family and friends inside a restaurant or bar is likely not in the near future for Bay Area residents, limited dining at outdoor patios and sidewalk cafes may not be too far off.
And San Jose leaders want to make it as easy as possible for restaurants and other small businesses to adapt and succeed when county public health directives allow for it.
Under a new initiative proposed by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and Councilwoman Dev Davis, businesses could be allowed to take over parking lots, shut down parts of streets and siphon off areas of a public park in order to serve their customers when the region begins to open up.
“We recognize that in a city with 300 days of sunshine a year, we have a unique opportunity to offer a plan for greater resilience to the coronavirus challenge that is facing every single small business owner in the city, and throughout the country right now,” Liccardo said during a news conference on Friday.
The new proposal — dubbed Al Fresco San Jose — was announced less than a week after some states, like South Carolina, opened up outdoor dining and as other cities across the nation, like Chicago, are working on similar regulations to allow for increased outdoor services when their stay-at-home orders are lifted.
Of the more than Of 1,600 businesses that operate in downtown San Jose, only about 15% have remained in operation since the county’s stay-at-home order went into effect in mid-March, according to Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association.
“So it isn’t surprising that we’ve got a lot of pain right now in the small business community,” Knies said. “And efforts like this are a step in the right direction because we know it’s going to be different –we’re going to have spacing requirements and less tables inside.”
“Necessity is sometimes the mother of invention, so this is a real opportunity for us,” he added.
In a memo penned by Liccardo and Davis, the pair have proposed to allow businesses and business districts to apply for temporary use of streets, surface lots, public parking spaces and recreation areas for outdoor dining, exercise classes and other outdoor business operations, as permitted under the county’s public health directive.
Their proposed plan would also waive sidewalk café permits and fees to allow restaurants and other businesses to operate outside seating and service for customers who comply with the county order.
The city plans to work jointly with community leaders to identify ideal locations, including public parks, alleys, plazas and streets, where the outdoor business activities could take place.
City officials and community business leaders hope that the proposed outdoor dining and commerce areas could become permanent fixtures of the city even after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
“We’ve already started to do this in little parklets — taking over some parking spaces in different areas of the city,” Davis said. “The way that I see this, it’s a good way to test it out in a lot of other areas and see where it could be permanent.”
