City administration is thrilled that businesses could soon expand their services to sidewalks and parking stalls since it would generate additional excitement and downtown activities.
During the March 22 executive committee meeting, city council voted unanimously on a recommendation to adopt the Extension of Business for Sidewalk, Boulevard and Parking Stall policy to allow businesses to extend their services onto adjacent public sidewalks, boulevards and parking stalls where appropriate.
Since these patios would likely see customers drinking past 11 p.m., the municipality would apply the existing noise bylaw to these new spaces as well. This would be similar to restaurants with existing outdoor patios on their properties.
The recommendation will likely become official at the April 12 regular meeting.
“As we said (during the March 22 meeting), it will certainly take some parking spots out of circulation then, but there’s also a lot of parking lots on Main Street that you can access really easy,” city manager Jim Puffalt said during a recent media scrum.
“And the concept is, park in a parking lot if you can’t get (a spot) in front of your business and walk up and down the street because there’s a lot of cool things to do.”
Businesses will only be able to rent stalls in front of their buildings and not elsewhere in the downtown, he said. City administration does not want businesses using parking spaces in front of city hall since those spots are vital to residents doing business there.
Most of the feedback city hall received about this idea was positive, Puffalt added. The only concern was about keeping sidewalks around patios clear of snow in the winter.
City administration consulted with the Moose Jaw Downtown Business Association — the driving force behind this idea — and the chamber of commerce while creating the new extension policy. All three parties attempted to implement something similar last year when they encouraged businesses to create pop-up patios as one method to recover from the pandemic.
There was little uptake from the business community for that idea, however, Puffalt said. The only successful public pop-up patio was one that all three groups created in a lot between Veroba’s Restaurant and the former Times-Herald building.
Allowing businesses to use parking stalls as patio space is a new idea that was not discussed last year, Puffalt continued. This concept is already used across North America, something he and some friends experienced when they visited an American city and enjoyed refreshments at sidewalk patios along a street.
The downtown association is responsible for communicating with its members, so it will promote this new policy to them, communications manager Craig Hemingway said during the scrum. However, now that the issue is before city council, city hall will also communicate this news to businesses — using a brochure and digital methods — that are with the association and those that are not.
The next regular council meeting is April 12.
