Park Ridge aldermen finalized fees for the 2023 outdoor dining season April 17 after back-and-forth with a handful of local restaurant owners who opposed the move to raise fees for outdoor dining table space from $600 to $900 per parking spot.
“We are concerned with your success; we really are,” Mayor Marty Maloney said to restaurant owners who attended the meeting after more than an hour of sometimes-tense discussion. “It might not feel like it tonight, but Park Ridge, the council, staff, we’re invested in you and your success.”
Outdoor dining began as a response to pandemic mitigations in 2020 when state public health rules put capacity limits on indoor restaurant service, but, as it has proved popular, dining al fresco has continued as an amenity during spring and summer in Park Ridge.
The business owners objected to the 50% rate increase and asked to be more involved in planning and decision making for future seasons.
Ryan Tracy of Main Street’s Beer on the Wall ripped the city for deciding on a fee structure so close to the beginning of the outdoor dining season, set to start May 1, and said he had not felt involved in the process.
“It is April 17,” Tracy said. “My outdoor seating is supposed to open in two weeks and I have yet to receive a single communication, aside from [city staffer] Tim [Schwartz].”
Declan Stapleton, who owns Harp and Fiddle, told aldermen the city still would make some additional money off the outdoor dining program because of food and beverage taxes collected off of sales made during the program.
Stapleton also made the argument that the restaurants indirectly drove more revenue to the city by bringing people to shop and generating sales tax from other nearby businesses.
“What our program brings to Uptown is foot traffic and incremental business to all those shops and stores and salons and jewelries and so forth,” he said. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is remarkably in favor of it.”
Stapleton asked the council to freeze the rate for the year and to meet with the city on putting together a five-year plan for the future of the program.
5th Ward Alderman Charlie Melidosian said he opposed raising the fee from $3.75 per square foot to $5.62 per square foot. While he said he thought some payment was merited for private use of public land, he wanted to know if there was “anything concrete that this incremental revenue could go to.”
City Manager Joe Gilmore said the city would use the fee revenue to help promote non-food and beverage businesses in the city who couldn’t take advantage of public land in the same way.
“Some of the money has been deployed, some of the money has yet to be deployed,” he said. “The initial idea was to expand that marketing program for non-restaurant focused businesses.”
Melidosian said he’d oppose raising the rate for outdoor space because he hadn’t “really seen what the loss would be to the city” by keeping the rate at $3.75 but would vote to authorize the program for another year no matter what the rate was.
7th Ward Alderman Harmony Harrington supported raising the fee, casting the issue as a matter of fairness to both non-restaurant businesses and to the city.
“This isn’t about an onerous tax on a profitable business,” she said. “It’s about the fair market value of public land that’s being used to make a profit. Other businesses don’t have the ability to close down the street and extend their business and make a profit.”
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Council members approved the program in a 6-1 vote, with 2nd Ward Alderman Fred Sanchez the lone “no” vote.
