Street closure approved for outdoor dining
Restaurant to try roadway seating on weekends
LANSDALE » Should taxpayer dollars be spent to help a borough business make it through the current coronavirus lockdowns? And what if others ask for similar help?
Those questions were debated at length Wednesday night, and will likely continue in two weeks, as council voted to grant the Stove and Tap restaurant temporary permission to close part of Wood Street and use the space for outdoor dining.
“I just want to get back to work, and I think it’s an exciting oppor
tunity for the town, the borough, to show we’re putting our best food forward, to reopen and get things going,” said Stove and Tap owner Justin Weathers.
Located at the corner of Main and Wood streets, Stove and Tap has been closed since mid-March due to the ongoing coronavirus-related closure orders. As Montgomery County moves from the red to yellow phase of COVID-related restrictions, Weathers presented a proposal during talks between staff and several restaurant owners over the past week, which would see the block of North Wood Street next to the restaurant closed to allow outdoor dining on weekends, by reservation only, for a limited number of people.
The road closure would be from 3 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays (and Sundays in an initial proposal), to allow for cleanup by Stove and Tap staff on either end of a 5 to 10 p.m. operational window. All guests would wear masks, food would be served in single-use containers, guests would provide their contact information in case tracing is needed, and there would be no standing-room area, council President Denton Burnell said, outlining the specific terms and conditions in the proposal.
“The applicant would be responsible for enforcing and maintaining all of the CDC guidelines. They have to provide a plan for how the tables would be situated,” he said.
“All of this is dependent on actually going to yellow, and that there’s not some other extenuating circumstance like a county-wide curfew, because of all of the other issues we’ve been dealing with over the last week,” Burnell said.
Police Chief Mike Trail said he and borough Emergency Management Coordinator Rick Lesniak had reviewed the proposal, and the main concern from both was how to close the roadway safely.
“Provided they install some sort of vehicle mitigation, to not allow vehicles to enter the roadway; specifically, to include either concrete barriers at either end of the roadway, of sufficient size or sturdiness to prohibit vehicles, and/or the use of municipal dump trucks with sand that would be filled to block the roadway,” Trail said.
Those barriers are where the public cost appears: early estimates are that using borough Public Works staff to either park trucks or move concrete barriers to block the street would cost about $2,500 per weekend, about $1,000 to $1,500 per day, due largely to contractually obligated overtime pay that would be needed to get employees to do so, according to Burnell and Borough Manager John Ernst.
“We’re talking about $1,000 to $1,500 a day on the weekend, for our staff to move the concrete barriers at this point — plus or minus $6,000 for the proposed month of June,” Ernst said.
Public Works Director Rick DeLong said that number is likely a high-end estimate, and Ernst said staff are still investigating how that work would be classified — as scheduled overtime or an unanticipated call-in assignment.
“If we know in advance this is a schedule that is needed for staff, it’s not necessarily, in our opinion, considered an emergency call-in, which changes the pay scale drastically,” Ernst said.
Councilman Leon Angelichio said, while he’d like to support the business, he was wary of what doing so could mean for others.
“If we are willing to subsidize this week, for the benefit of one business in town, when the inevitable question comes up, ‘What about me?,’ what precedent have we set?” he said. “... We almost obligate ourselves to say yes to anybody who comes forward with a good plan.”
Councilwoman Meg Currie Teoh said she thought council and staff would be open to conversations on similar plans elsewhere, and Ernst said staff already work with restaurants on events like First Fridays and other large gatherings.
Councilwoman Carrie Hawkins Charlton said she thought other restaurants along Main Street could lean on the borough to help spur talks with the Madison Apartment complex owners behind them about doing similar outdoor dining along Madison Street. Trail said the street was rebuilt over the past three years with removeable bollards designed to partially close the roadway for dining during the pandemic and later on, for events when allowed.
Councilman BJ Breish said when he has organized trash cleanups around downtown, that area along Wood tends to have odd winds that cause trash to accumulate; Weathers answered that his staff would be responsible for cleaning it up.
“We would definitely be responsible for the general look and feel of the corridor at that time, and all times. You are right, the wind is a little quirky in there, it definitely catches some angles,” he said.
“What I’m hoping for is a draw back to downtown, that will create some foot traffic and walking around, a return to normal, and a reminder of the businesses that are all in that area,” Weathers said.
Burnell pointed out extra complications: the restaurant’s request envisioned a start date of June 5, requiring an action vote during the June meeting which typically contains only committee reports, and the cost question. Burnell asked Weathers if he’d be willing to split the estimated $2,400 costs, which the owner agreed to, and Breish and Trail added that far more than that amount had already been unspent so far in the town’s 2020 budget for overtime costs to cover now-cancelled events like Lansdale Day and First Fridays already called off due to the pandemic.
Trail suggested council could approve a temporary special event permit closing the street for the outdoor dining only on the next two weekends, then revisit on a more permanent basis at council’s June 17 meeting. Doing so could also lift a prohibition of having alcohol on public streets, according to the chief, and would resemble similar temporary event approvals that Stove and Tap and others have gotten prior to 2020; borough Solicitor Patrick Hitchens added that doing so would be “consistent with past practices.”
Burnell added that any issues or problems that arise over the first two weekends could be addressed in the second resolution on June 17, with more time for further public discussion.
“I think we’re trying to do the best we can, and get a couple of weekends out of this, and hopefully we find a cheaper alternative to close the roads, we learn some things, and go from there,” Burnell said.
Council then voted unanimously to approve the permit, and councilman Rich DiGregorio urged the owners to “go make some burgers.” Weathers said Thursday that, with the temporary approval now in hand, his restaurant is now looking to add staff for all positions.
“It’s time to get moving. Looking to hire again, send good people our way,” Weathers said.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. June 17 online; for details visit www.Lansdale.org.