Streets close for dining, but questions arise

First weekend of reopening experiment called a success

Instead of parking spots, picnic tables. That’s a vision city leaders in the Baltimore area and elsewhere around the country are embracing as cities and states reopen. Proponents hope closing streets to facilitate outdoor dining will help struggling businesses hurt by coronavirus closures, and maybe even prompt a bit of a renaissance in car-free neighborhoods.

While there are plenty of obstacles, the opening weekend of this experiment — which coincided with glorious weather — was a success.

“It was amazing,” said Melony Wagner, owner of the Charles Village Pub and Patio, of the atmosphere on Pennsylvania Avenue in Towson. On Saturday and Sunday, the street became an extended outdoor dining space serving several restaurants between York Road and Washington Avenue.

“There were families, dogs, kids, dancing in the street,” Wagner said. “Everyone was social distancing, but having a good time.

“It’s been such a hard three months. It was so helpful to get back to doing what we do.”

The program, sponsored by Baltimore County and the Towson Chamber of Commerce, is called “Seats on the Streets.” If all goes well, local leaders hope it will become a model that can be replicated elsewhere in the county.

“Many people would like to see this done on a permanent basis,” said Baltimore County Councilman David Marks.

While Gov. Larry Hogan permitted Maryland restaurants to open at half capacity indoors starting June 12, some guests likley will prefer to stay outdoors, which experts say is a lower-risk alternative. In fact, Hogan, a cancer survivor, said he wouldn’t feel comfortable dining inside a restaurant — but he would eat al fresco. He’s encouraged local jurisdictions to close streets to allow more space for restaurants to expand their outdoor dining options.

In recent months, the idea of creating outdoor dining areas in public spaces has been embraced in places as far flung as Vilnius, Lithuania, and Berkeley, California. Now, it’s gaining steam in Maryland. Last week, Montgomery County announced the opening of the “Bethesda Streetery,” which closed streets to create an open-air dining area where customers can eat food purchased from nearby restaurants.

Officials with Baltimore’s transportation department are in the process of reviewing more than two dozen applications for partial road closures. The requests also will

be reviewed by various other departments, including police, fire and health, and then be sent to the city’s liquor board for comment.

Typically, it takes months to approve such special-event permits; the city hopes to distill the process into around a week, said Thomas Akras, deputy executive secretary of the Board of Liquor License Commissioners.

City Councilman Eric Costello couldn’t say exactly when the closures will begin in Baltimore, but “the goal is to do it as soon as humanly possible.”

One victory came Thursday. In an executive order, Hogan authorized Baltimore’s Board of Liquor License Commissioners to waive the $200 daily fee for temporary permit license extensions — which allow restaurants to serve alcohol beyond their normal footprint. Such fees, Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young wrote in a June 1 letter to Hogan, were “incompatible” with necessary health accommodations. The board voted unanimously to suspend the fee throughout the state of emergency put in place due to the pandemic.

Still, other questions remain. For example: Who’s in charge of physically closing the streets?

That’s a question Eliza Steele of Dylan’s Oyster Cellar has been pondering. This week, Steele filled out an application to close off part of Chestnut Avenue surrounding the Hampden corner eatery where she works. The form asked what type of barricade the restaurant would implement. Steele didn’t even know they would need

one.

“We had assumed that the city would handle closing the street, but I think it seems like that’s maybe not the case,” she said.

Akras said whether a restaurant needs to get a barrier depends on how many seats they hopr to place outside.

Then there’s the issue of parking. Residents of some Baltimore neighborhoods have expressed concerns about parking and traffic. Maureen Sweeney Smith, executive director of Fells Point Main Street, said she’s been working with people who live in the area to come up with a plan that works for both businesses and homeowners.

So has Sergio Vitale, chef and owner of Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano, who lobbied to close streets in the Little Italy neighborhood where he lives and works. He said he’s spoken with residents to determine parameters of proposed street closures, for example, keeping them limited to evening hours only.

While Costello acknowledged the street closures inconvenience some residents, he believes it’s a necessary step to ensure the survival of the hospitality industry.

“We are not going to let our restaurant industry in the city fail,” he said.

Details aside, a few people hope it will inspire a cultural shift in how we think of public space.

“It’s beyond just outdoor dining,” said Fells Point architect Bryce Turner, who has been working with community members on proposals to close roads in the East Baltimore neighborhood.

To Turner, the pandemic offers an opportunity to create more walkable and welcoming communities. “Places are so much more beautiful” without cars parked everywhere, he said.

His designs for the neighborhood include planters and umbrellas placed on Thames Street’s paving stones. White barriers made from repurposed wooden pallets would separate the dining area from the street.

Neighborhoods like Fells Point have experimented with street closures during non-pandemic times. Last summer, for example, restaurants offered al fresco dining in a city block as part of a monthly program.

“I think that program can really be expanded,” Turner said.

Turner said it reflects a larger global move toward outdoor dining; he points to examples like the Wharf in Washington, where diners can sometimes sit outside with heat lamps in weather as cool as 50 degrees.

“It works in Europe, it works in other places,” he said, “why can’t it work here?”

Still, it’s hard for Steele to see outdoor dining as a catch-all solution. Restaurants like hers have a difficult road ahead of them, struggling to reopen safely as the pandemic rages on. If tons of people show up, that could pose another threat, she thinks.

“Anything I can conceive of has 10 problems associated with it,” she said.