Downtown eatery objects to new outdoor dining fee
A downtown restaurateur in Larkspur is pushing back on the city's new monthly outdoor dining fee.
Gary Rulli, co-owner of the bakery-cafe-wine shop Emporio Rulli on Magnolia Avenue, said his business has offered outdoor seating for 35 years. The new fee system adopted by the city — which sets public-right-of-way leasing at $4 per square foot — is set to cost the business thousands, he said.
“It's totally unreasonable,” said Rulli. “With a $10-per-person check average, it's just not feasible.”
Emporio Rulli set up an outdoor parklet during the pandemic
to augment outdoor seating options on the sidewalk and in its private outdoor alcove.
The restaurant removed its parklet, which took up three parking spaces, during a repaving project on Magnolia Avenue in 2022. He pulled in the tables and chairs from the sidewalk on Sunday, the day before the new rule went into effect.
Rulli argued that the new fee is burdensome. He said the cost to his business is $1,800 a month — which amounts to a more than $20,000 over the course of a year.
He said he and his wife also own a restaurant in San Francisco and a chocolate boutique in a terminal at San Francisco International Airport. In San Francisco, their restaurant pays $2,400 a year for outdoor dining, he said.
“I just really felt they weren't looking into how this affects businesses,” Rulli said of Larkspur's new fee. “It's not like they came to us and said, `this is what our thought process is. How do you feel?'”
Dan Schwarz, city manager, said the council adopted a framework for the outdoor dining policy at a meeting in June of 2022, giving staff the ability to implement policy for the lease of public right of way by restaurants. The system applied to encroachment permits for any business using public space.
The fee schedule for the program allowed the public works department to set the cost per square foot at the prevailing