Sonoma City Council sours on outdoor dining program; parklets to be removed by Oct. 31

Parklets, your days are numbered in Sonoma.

Sonoma City Council members last week voted, 3-2, to end the Al Fresco Sonoma program Oct. 31. City staff plans to contact restaurants this week regarding the date by which the makeshift sidewalk-dining patios, or parklets, must be removed.

The parklets were established at the onset of the pandemic when, in May 2020, the Council approved the Al Fresco Sonoma program, which allowed food and drink establishments to temporarily expand their service areas into sidewalk and parking spaces while indoor service was prohibited.

Originally set to sunset Oct. 31, 2021, the Al Fresco program has been extended multiple times, while city staff explored the feasibility of making it permanent.

On June 1, the City Council agreed to extend the program to April 1, 2023, on the condition that the parklet operators made certain aesthetic and safety upgrades per city regulations, as well as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But, according to some City Council members, few of the upgrades have been made.

“I haven’t seen any improvement to aesthetics on parklets since then,” Vice Mayor Kelso Barnett said at the Council’s Sept. 21 meeting. “I think it’s hard to trust this process moving forward and I think maybe it’s time to (end the program).”

There are 11 restaurants currently taking part in the program, with a total of 12 parklets in operation.

Sonoma resident Clairr Solot, who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, asked the Council not to “do an about-face” after previously extending the program. Such a move, she said, would create a hardship for participating restaurants.

“(Parklet operators) have reasonably relied on representations made in the June meeting,” Solot said. “There is no justification at this point to shutter this program prematurely.”

Mark Bodenhamer, director of the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce, also raised concern during the meeting about ending the program Oct. 31.

“The change of the dates is really difficult,” he said. “We just voted in June to extend it to April 2023, so revising that on the fly is difficult.”

Council member Sandra Lowe supported upholding the April end date.

“They’ve already invested money and resources and staff that are hired,” Lowe said about the restaurants preparing for an April deadline. “And we can’t keep yanking their chains.”

Council member Bob Felder, however, said what seems to have been “lost in all the discussion” of the April extension is that it was tied to the parklet operators meeting the conditions laid out by the Council. Those conditions, he said, have largely been ignored.

“Everything we have tried to put forward — in terms of improvements and aesthetics — has been pushed aside and delayed. And that’s unacceptable,” Felder said.

He read from a resolution the Council made in June that stated only parklets that complied with the mitigating conditions would be granted an extension to April 1, 2023. Businesses that didn’t comply by Oct. 31 would be required to remove their parklets, Felder read.

City staff issued a notice to program participants in May detailing a list of uniform standards to which the parklets must comply, including regulations regarding sidewalk access, umbrella use, pedestrian ramps, installation of safety curbs, use of guard walls, heaters, tents, sunscreens, trash bins and furniture.

As much as restaurantgoers may enjoy street-side dining, the parklets are an “aesthetic disaster” for Sonoma Plaza, said Barnett, who had earlier been an advocate for making the Al Fresco program permanent.

“At the end of the day we realized this is ultimately a construction project of little buildings on the Plaza,” Barnett said. “I realize other cities in the county have parklets, but (the Sonoma Plaza) is a national landmark, a historic monument. This isn’t downtown Santa Rosa.”

The vice mayor also expressed disappointment that parklet operators haven’t been more receptive to complying with the program conditions.

“All we were asking our restaurants to do was come into compliance with safety standards and also really improve the aesthetics, instead we got a lot of push back,” said Barnett, citing El Dorado Kitchen and the Girl & the Fig restaurants for “ripping their (parklets) out and trash(ing) the City Council and city in the media.”

That reaction was a surprise, Barnett said.

“All the city has tried to do from day one since this pandemic started was help our restaurants on the Plaza,” he said. “We bent over backward to allow this parklet program.”

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.