Posts tagged #savethepatios
As fines begin, backlash brews over patio rules for Raleigh bars and restaurants

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — There’s more backlash Tuesday night over new outdoor seating rules in downtown Raleigh.

Several business owners say that it’s cutting into their bottom line and will no longer offer patio seating. Some expect that trend to continue.

“We love being on Fayetteville street. These wide sidewalks are very pedestrian friendly. People like to walk up with their dogs, sit down, have a beer,” said Zack Medford the owner of Paddy O’Beers.

It makes sense to hear the owner of Paddy O’Beers talking about patio seating.

“We called it Paddy O’Beers because we wanted to have an area in Raleigh where you could sit outside on a big patio and enjoy a beer,” Medford said.

But he says Raleigh’s new rules regulating outdoor seating at bars and restaurants is impacting his bottom line.

Zack Medford is applying to keep his outdoor seating permit.

”If we lose our patio, that is our entire business model and Paddy O’Beers will have to close its doors,” Medford said.

Here’s what Raleigh’s outdoor drinking ordinance will (probably) look like

Except the task force members didn’t see it that way. What Remer and the other staff members didn’t know was that on Tuesday, Paddy O’Beers owner Zack Medford and five other hospitality stakeholders held a private meeting where they hashed out their own compromise. It looks like this:
 
Propsed_PUPS_Text_Change.pdf

  • Occupancy would be determined by the state building code, meaning: If you have fixed tables and chairs, you are limited to 15 square feet per person. If you have more transient furniture, like folding chairs, you are limited to seven square feet per person. If you have standing room only, it’s five square feet per person. For each bar, city officials would determine the magic number after reviewing a sketch of the furniture and space. 
     
  • Outdoor use would be cut off ay 2 a.m., and stanchions would be required after 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Bars and restaurants would have to have a manager on duty after 10 p.m.; this manager is in charge of compliance and dealing the Raleigh PD. 
     
  • The bars would be responsible for ensuring their areas were clean. 
     
  • Permits would cost $250 a year, a 75 percent increase. 

Those six members circulated the proposal to the others ahead of today’s task force. There wasn’t universal agreement by any means, but it was grounds for hashing out … something. And if that was the case, the members decided they should try to agree on something, or at least on most things, rather than throwing up their arms and surrendering to staff, who some of them felt were trying to impose their agenda on the task force. 

As Medford told me in a Facebook message after the previous week’s meeting: 
 

Seems like whenever the group is moving towards consensus, staff suddenly backtracks to remind us unproductive things like "these are sidewalks not patios" and "it's a privilege". This was our fourth meeting, I think we should be past that point and focused on solutions.


“So those are the options that will be presented to City Council?” asked Joe Durham, a former Wake County manager who was representing residents on the task force. “No recommendation from this group? No recommendation from staff? … It’s not effective. I don’t see it as being effective.” 

Ashley Melville, the representative from the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, said, “I’m very confident we can come to consensus,” and at that point, Medford and ShopLocal Raleigh executive director Jen Martin unveiled their proposal. Indeed, within a matter of minutes, consensus had developed with respect to all but one major point: occupancy. I’ll come back to that in the a minute. 

The consensus looked a lot like Medford et al.’s proposal. A suggestion to allow bars to use the sidewalks in front of adjoining properties with permission from the building owner was nixed, as this would run afoul of ABC rules. And the group agreed to go along with staff’s more punitive violation fines and raise the permit fee to $300. It took some discussion, but eventually the task force voted in favor of Medford’s group’s more generous occupancy limits. (This made staff members uneasy, as the current code was written only for seating, not for standing, and it’s possible we haven’t heard the last of this issue.) 

Pub owners concerned as Raleigh studies outdoor dining rules

RALEIGH 

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Zack Medford.

First he received an email from the City of Raleigh at 4:59 p.m. on Friday, May 29 letting him know about a Monday, June 1 meeting on a proposed rewrite of city rules that would strip bars of their rights to have tables on city sidewalks.

The change would cut Medford’s revenue in half at Paddy O’Beers, one of three businesses he owns with sidewalk seating on Fayetteville Street.

At the June 1 meeting, the outdoor minibar set up at Medford’s bar, Coglin’s Raleigh, during Brewgaloo on April 25 was used as an example of outdoor dining gone rogue.

While there have been ongoing conversations with city officials about crowding on sidewalks, the outdoor bar issue took him by surprise, he said.

“They are using this as ammunition against us and why this ordinance is required,” he said. “The funny thing is we are fully permitted, and on top of it they never told us that we can’t do this.”

Since at least 2013, Medford has been opening outdoor bars during most downtown events and believed it was sanctioned, he said, as he sought a temporary permit extension from the N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. The approval includes a map of the outdoor area with the bar and a sign-off with written comments by the Raleigh Police Department.

The situation is one example of the confusion and frustration stemming from city officials’ proposal – sprung on business owners last week – to revise city rules for restaurants, bars and other spaces that hold outdoor dining permits, which allow them to put tables and chairs on city sidewalks. The controversy is the latest version of an ongoing clash among competing interests and visions as Raleigh’s downtown revitalization takes hold.


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/small-business/article23540431.html#storylink=cpy

Patios, pints and growing pains in Raleigh

BY ZACK T. MEDFORD

I opened Paddy O’Beers – get it? Patio Beers? – because I love sitting outside and sipping craft beer. I think Raleigh shares that passion, too – we have more than nine breweries in this city, as well as many new bottle shops. The website for the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau has a whole page dedicated to helping visitors find them.

Last week, the assistant city manager proposed an ordinance that would revoke the patio permits of local businesses that don’t sell “enough” food. If passed, we would lose two-thirds of our seating at Paddy O’Beers and likely be forced to close our doors.

This ordinance is a mistake, and public response to the proposal has been a resounding, “No.”

I started a petition asking the City Council to reject this proposal, and it has nearly 8,000 signatures. The residents of Raleigh have made it clear: Don’t take away our patios!

Raleigh is at a crossroads. We’re no longer the sleepy Southern town we once were. We are growing into a lively, well-rounded city. It is an exciting time to live in Raleigh, especially downtown. Growing up, however, doesn’t come without growing pains.

Rapid growth means more people, and with more people you get more problems. Restaurants have longer waits. Parking is harder to find. Things can get noisy. These growing pains are natural for any city. It’s up to us, as a community, to come up with solutions to these problems in an open forum.

This ordinance will do nothing to lower the volume downtown, increase public safety or clean up the city. Instead, it will close many responsible local businesses that have never had a single complaint filed against them. Raleigh should be working with businesses like Foundation, which was featured in the magazines Our State and Garden & Gun. It shouldn’t be trying to regulate them out of business.

It is not the government’s job to pick winners and losers. Nachos and hamburgers are not going to make a business quieter or cleaner. Specific establishments that cause problems should be addressed through code violations, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

We all love our city, and we’re proud of how far we’ve come these last 10 years since Fayetteville Street was reopened. Many people took a gamble on opening businesses downtown, creating the vibrant urban center we have today. We have invested our time, financial resources and passion into making our downtown a destination. We didn’t receive any state, federal or local incentives to open our business in Raleigh.

Instead of shuttering the local businesses that have made our downtown such a success, we should be working with them to address these growing pains. Together, as a community, we can overcome any obstacle.

Zack T. Medford is the owner of Paddy O’Beers in downtown Raleigh.


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article23131995.html

#SavethePatios

Andrew Pepin sometimes prefers to enjoy his beer outside, but a proposed change to a Raleigh city ordinance could limit his outdoor drinking.

“One of the greatest things about Raleigh is being able to sit outside and enjoy the beverage, enjoy the weather,” Pepin said Sunday while drinking outside Paddy O’Beers.

Paddy O’Beers owner Zack Medford believes the proposal is targeted towards businesses like his. 

Medford started an online petition that has garnered more than 2,300 signatures.

“An ordinance that would take away our patio is kind of a slap in the face,” he said.

The issue was referred to the City Council's Law & Public Safety Committee, which will discuss it on June 9. The original ordinance referred to an "outdoor dining permit," officials said, so council members will look at the wording when considering any changes.