Many of the tables, chairs, and umbrellas that have become fixtures on parking lanes throughout the city are set to come down as an ordinance restricting businesses’ popular “parklet” seating comes into effect this month. 

Bar and restaurant owners were unnerved to receive letters from the city’s Department of Public Works at the end of July notifying them that they had until Aug. 31 to remove the outdoor dining set-ups and return plastic protective barriers to the city.

The crackdown, based on an ordinance the City Council adopted last year, has prompted outcry from business owners and neighbors and a renewed effort to amend the regulations.

The parklets — ranging from flimsy table and chair sets to roofed structures decorated with planters— became a crucial coping mechanism for business owners and patrons alike during early pandemic lockdowns. 

But the permits those business owners received from the city — 40 of them in total — were temporary, granted through a parklet pilot program launched in the fall of 2020. 

When City Council established permanent regulations last summer, parklet owners were dismayed to find that the new rules allowed the structures in commercial districts only. That meant that business owners in residential parts of the city — like in the Bywater and the Marigny, where street seating has become especially popular in recent years — would be out of luck.

The outcry was swift and loud. An online petition calling on the council to amend the ordinance quickly gained over 1,000 signatures from residents praising the parklets for helping local businesses stay afloat and bringing life and character to the city’s streets.

As the enactment date for the new regulations approached, business owners received assurances from city officials that the parklets would be protected, said Sam Wurth, owner of Pepp’s Pub, a Franklin Avenue bar that generates 30-40% of its revenue from customers who sit outside at the outdoor wooden bar, adorned with painted murals. At a meeting with City Council member Freddie King a couple months ago, Wurth said he and other business owners were encouraged to learn that King, whose district includes the Bywater and the Marigny, would explore ways to address their concerns.

Wurth said that he has also been gratified by receptiveness from city officials to proposals to amend the regulations to permit parklets in most residential areas and permit up to three parklets per block face. Both King and a spokesperson for the Mayor declined to comment on any specific regulation supported by the administration. A spokesperson for the Mayor wrote that “Office of Economic Development, in coordination with Nighttime Economy, has been hard at work developing ways to maintain a vibrant parklet program and loosen the restrictions imposed by the new law.”

But on July 24, Wurth received the letter from the Department of Public Works notifying him that his business was located in an area not eligible for parklet permits and giving him until close of business on Aug. 31 to “remove any parklet elements still present within the public right-of-way.”

Two weeks after the letters arrived, King said he has yet to take any action to amend the regulations. 

“By my math there is still three weeks to deal with this,” said King.  

Public safety tool, or neighborhood disruption?

As the clock ticks down for parklet owners, a packed room of residents and business owners gathered at Cafe Istanbul on St. Claude Avenue Monday night to share heated thoughts on the future of the streetscapes. The opinions shared at the meeting, convened by King, would help inform next steps, he said.

Supporters spoke about the benefits of parklets as a community gathering place, as a revenue generator for business owners, and— by putting more people on the street at night— a public safety tool. Detractors spoke about the parklets taking up space on narrow streets, creating traffic, driving hazards, and noise, and detracting from historic architecture. 

“This is an area that people have loved to come to for hundreds of years— let’s not take away from that by starting to build new structures,” Nathan Chapman, president of the Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents & Associates, noting that neighbors living next to parklets have complained about noise and cigarette smoke. 

Some in favor of the outdoor arrangements argued that they help keep neighborhoods safer and calmer for everyone.

Robert Bostick, owner of Brieux Carré Brewing Co, a small brewery just off Frenchmen Street, said he hoped that he would be permitted to create a parklet outside his business through amendments to the regulations, which currently prohibit them at breweries. Creating an outdoor seating area would help address crime on the block, he said. “Having a parklet— it shows that there’s more activity on the street,” said Bostick, while grabbing a drink with other parklet supports at Pepp’s before walking over to the meeting. “It could be a deterrent.”

Others argued that parklets are less disruptive than the alternative. 

“When you don’t have parklets you have a lot of people sitting on the stoops in neighborhoods— parklets keep it contained,” Sean Randall, who lives around the corner from Pepp’s. “Every major city has these out there, we don’t want to be left behind.”