Item 9 Additional Material posted 10-19-201 of 3October 20, 2020, Item #9M EMQRAN DLJ M City of Poway ADDITIONAL MATERIALS (Agenda Related Writings/Documents provided to City Council or Staff after distribution of the Agenda Packet for the October 20, 2020 Council Meeting) DATE: TO: FROM: CONTACT: SUBJECT: October 19, 2020 Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council Vaida Pavolas, City Clerk '\J (858) 668-4535 or vpavolas@poway.org Item 9 -Outdoor Dining Opportunities Attached please find correspondence received after the agenda posting deadline. Reviewed/Approved By: Wend Kaserman Assistant City Manager Reviewed By: Alan Fenstermacher City Attorney Approved By: City Manager
2 of 3October 20, 2020, Item #9ADDITIONAL MATERIAL From: To: Subject: Date: Assi Friedman QtllJerk RE: Public input for agenda item 9 Wednesday, October 14, 2020 8:37:54 PM Attention Poway City Clerk: Please find public comment for agenda item 9 on the 20 October city council meeting. Thank you, Asis Attention Poway City Council: Mr. Chris Hazeltine makes the following statement in his memorandum "The relaxed policy on outdoor dining has been in effect for approximately five months and is a proven success". Mr. Hazeltine makes a strong assertion about the effect of the program but provides nothing to substantiate his claim. Such a strong assertion must be followed by quantitative evidence as the phrase "proven success" demands. The reality is that Mr. Hazeltine has no evidence what to ever to demonstrate any economic benefit of the program. The vast majority of restaurants have been surviving off takeout business and the few benches provided by the taxpayer are a tiny fraction of their revenue. This ends up being more taxpayer funded theatrics designed to assist Mayor Vaus in his bid for County Supervisor. The City council should disapprove this request. Assi Friedman Poway, CA
3 of 3October 20, 2020, Item #9Ana Alarcon From: Sent: To: Cc: Subject: Joe St. Lucas <jstlucas@gmail.com> Monday, October 19, 2020 9:53 AM Steve Vaus; Vaida Pavolas Caylin Frank; Dave Grosch; Barry Leonard; John Mullin; Chris Hazeltine Item 9 Outdoor Dining Opportunities, Oct 20 City Council Meeting Giving the hard hit restaurants a break during the pandemic is certainly something that we should continue doing until the pandemic is gone or a vaccine is approved. However, there are some things that should be considered with this agenda item. In the short term, outdoor dining areas should be very strongly encouraged to limit or eliminate smoking. As Pierra Moise stated at the Sept 1 meeting, surveys show that outdoor diners prefer to eat at smoke free places, and responses to a post I made on Face book show that there's support for eliminating outdoor smoking at restaurants. Some people prefer eating outdoors since indoor seating has been limited by the state and county, and while smoking indoors is not allowed, the outdoors is different. Please consider doing something about smoking outdoors at our restaurants during the pandemic while indoor seating is not allowed to be at 100%. It's possible that the covid situation could put us back in a situation where 0 indoor dining is allowed. The state at one time eliminated indoor smoking because "voting w. our dollars", i.e. going only to a smoke free place, didn't work. Maybe say "those restaurants that are using our picnic tables for free or have expanded onto the sidewalks and parking lots should create a smoke free area to continue using these privileges." It seems that changes to the muni code to accommodate outdoor dining could have unwanted ripple effects. Some restaurants have taken over a half dozen parking spaces in their nearby shopping center lots for expanding their outdoor dining as well as expanding onto the sidewalks near the restaurants. While the rest of the shopping center might not be full now due to people doing more on-line shopping while the pandemic is active, eventually the shopping experience will return to pre-covid normal. The shopping centers, and their associated parking spaces, were sized by the code to be able to handle a certain number of vehicles depending upon the business types in the centers. Businesses in a shopping center with a lot of restaurants, such as the Target center or Creekside Plaza, might not have sufficient parking if all the restaurants there used lots of parking lot spaces. The Target center gets extremely packed between Thanksgiving and Christmas as it is. Having relinquished a few (or half dozen) parking spaces to a restaurant puts pressure on the rest of the center's parking spaces, will there be enough now to match the code requirements? Changing the code to say "a restaurant should have XX parking spaces per 100 sq.ft. of inside dining area" would have to be changed to allow a random amount of extra spaces for outside dining. Would the new businesses in the Creekside center have been approved if the restaurants were permanently allowed to take up parking spaces, leaving none for the new businesses? If restaurants were allowed to "take" parking spaces from the shopping center, would more restaurants be tempted to expand into the lots? Will the code be changed to allow "sandwich board" signs to be permanently placed on the sidewalks to get more traffic? In conclusion, extending the emergency outdoor restaurant dining spaces during the pandemic, or six months, is certainly very doable with no harmful side effects. Making changes permanent should be approached very very carefully. Asking the restaurants to limit or eliminate outdoor smoking during the pandemic would be appreciated. Thank you, Joseph St. Lucas 14829 Sunrise Dr Poway 92064