Boston outdoor dining fee is it fair?

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So I have been following this local controversy in Boston. Last year, due to the pandemic the city allowed local restaurants to use part of the sidewalk and/or street to have some outdoor dining. This year, they are going to allow it again, but in one neighborhood – the north end – the mayor is going to charge them a fee – I believe it is $7,500 plus additional fees for each month they have outdoor dining.

The reason giving why it would impact this one neighborhood is that the streets are narrower, parking is more difficult, rats, trash pick up and complaints of noise from people who live there so just this one neighborhood would have to pay additional. For those not familiar with the North End – it is Boston’s “Little Italy” so the majority of the restaurants are smaller family owned and from my personal experience – their outdoor dining is very minimal tables as they are pretty small. There are some larger restaurants but most are small.

Of course these restaurants owners are up in arms – calling out the unfairness of it and how they cannot afford it putting them in an unfair spot vs other restaurants throughout the that will not have to pay a fee. Others are saying they are using public space so they should pay city and even pointing out the biased ethnic group being impacted. The money is supposed to go back to the neighborhood to pay for whatever it is that is causing an issue with this neighborhood. Opposition is saying they can make up that money quick in one night for how much their dishes cost. (Now granted this depends on the restaurant – some are quite expensive and some are dirt cheap). Should these restaurants pay extra for additional space that is part of the sidewalk or street?

So curious as to an outsider – what are your thoughts? Is it fair to target one neighborhood? Even knowing they have physical issues due to the particular make-up of the neighborhood?

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2022/03/29/michelle-wu-north-end-outdoor-dining-fee/?p1=hp_primary

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@Linkat,

I don't see a problem with it. My thoughts pretty much just off the top of my head.
- Yes, there is a cleaning burden to the city for outdoor dining. I think another approach would be to pass an ordinance saying businesses who utilize public areas for their businesses are responsible for cleaning said area, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with a fee.
- You have a public resource, in this case the street, that a private business wants to use for its profit. If a business decided to take over a park gazebo and sell food, I think a lot of people would say "hey, that's a public area, you can't just take it over!" During the pandemic, towns and cities made exceptions to support local businesses that were struggling but long term, I don't think we really want restaurants spilling over into public areas. I want to be able to walk the sidewalks downtown without dodging through tables of diners. Restaurants are not entitled to this space.
- Businesses don't have to pay this fee. They can just go back to the dining options they had before the pandemic. If they want to expand their businesses, they can pay for it. If they think this fee is unreasonable, they can expand the old-fashioned way of renting a bigger space. It ends up being a business decision with a cost/benefit analysis.

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@engineer,

I'm in agreement with all this.

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@engineer,

I think the issue is it is only this one neighborhood in boston. It does not impact any other restaurants within the city. Another thing is the fee is standard whether you have two tables outside or 20 so this fee impacts the smaller businesses in greater amount than the larger ones that are more likely to be able to absorb it.

The one thing I agree with in regard to these businesses is our lovely state has a habit of saying they are going to use a fee\tax for a particular purpose but they end up using it for something completely unrelated. So I don't trust that the money will go back into the neighborhood.

Call a spade a spade...there is a fee for EVERYONE within the city to use public property and this is the fee per square footage.

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@Linkat,

That is a good point. A city-wide law should be uniform. Not worried so much about the fee, if you take the public space, you pay. That said, I do think there should be room to put tables in the area between the sidewalk and the front door to the restaurant so most places could have a table or two without any fee. I consider the public way to begin at the sidewalk. What this all says to me is that rather than just proclaiming a policy, the mayor needs to put some thought into it.

As for the tax, all money is fungible. Even if they could show that every tax penny was spent on the neighborhood, that just means that they diverted the sales tax dollars that they would have otherwise spent.

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I'm not sure how long you've got these street restaurants, but the discussion about the fees is going on here in Germany since decades - in France and Italy probably since centuries.

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@engineer,

The thing is they get peoples support by saying the tax or fee is going to pay for xyz and then they use it elsewhere...where it causes lack of trust..so who would believe then if the mayor collects a fee for the restaurants in the north end on the premise the money is going back into the community...then she uses it to open up bike lanes in downtown.

Like I said call a spade a spade ....a fee for use of public property.

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@Walter Hinteler,

This is more recent in the past year ... Due to covid and limitations on restaurants many cities and towns allowed restaurants to open up tables on sidewalks and streets so they could sustain their business. One due to limited seating indoors and two due to many people not wanting to dine indoors. It helped many restaurants that do not have outdoor property to keep their dining going on and keep them in business. Yeah there had been some restaurants that already had outdoor seating but it expanded it for pretty much all.

To me her way she went about it was not right. Just when they are getting ready to start the outdoor dining she pulls this rug out beneath them. I am not an expert on how well these businesses ate doing and if they did financially recover ... But if I were in her position I'd open it up this one more season....look like a hero to these small businesses ...let them know although this will inconvenience the city for another year, your business is important part of the city. Then talk about how you are working on a proposal for next year.

You get a well thought out proposal together that is for the entire city and then you have a period if time to vet it out. You are never going to get everyone on board but at least you can have representatives heard.

But then again we would all be better mayors

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@Linkat,

I do mean the comment about being a better mayor as a joke...I know people don't always get me....meaning it is easy to be critical when you are not in that position even though I think she handled this pretty poorly

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