The emergency programs that temporarily allowed Lompoc and Solvang restaurants to host outdoor seating on public parking spots and roadways are coming to an end.
During its March 14 meeting, the Solvang City Council decided that Copenhagen Drive will be reopened to vehicular traffic, and encroachment permits for businesses in other parts of town will be revoked by April 18.
The Lompoc City Council set a broader time frame for eateries to adapt to new rules during its March 15 meeting by voting not to enforce encroachment violations until Dec. 31 at the earliest.
Both of the cities’ temporary policies were enacted to help restaurants stay afloat during the pandemic, but with different approaches.
Businesses on Copenhagen Drive in Solvang have been covered by the Copenhagen closure, while restaurants and bars encroaching onto other streets and parking areas were granted permits on a case-by-case basis. Instead of permitting venues individually, Lompoc adopted a wholesale ordinance in July 2021 to temporarily suspend regulations on outdoor dining encroachments for all businesses in town.
Lompoc’s staff recommended that the city maintain the ordinance through the end of December, due to “the uncertainty regarding the emergence of new [COVID-19] variants and a lot of unknowns at this time,” Lompoc Community Development Director Christie Alarcon said at the March 15 hearing.
Councilmember Victor Vega said he supports the recommendation and doesn’t want to decrease outdoor dining options for anyone with trepidation about eating indoors, regardless of lifted mask mandates.
“We just need to take care of our businesses and make sure that our people feel good when they go out so that the businesses do have an opportunity to thrive for people that are still and will be impacted because of COVID,” Vega said.
Before members of the Lompoc City Council unanimously voted to maintain the ordinance through late December, Alarcon clarified that while the city will not issue outdoor dining encroachment violations during the hold, business owners are not advised to encroach onto space that would break ADA regulations.
“If a woman in a wheelchair goes to park at a restaurant and … there’s no parking at all, she could very well bring a lawsuit against that restaurant,” Alarcon said. “We aren’t liable as the city, but that restaurant owner is liable.”
Unlike Lompoc’s decision, the Solvang City Council was not unanimous in its stance on upcoming outdoor dining restrictions. Councilmember Robert Clarke said he would rather see Copenhagen Drive stay closed permanently or delay the reopening date to the summer, while Councilmember Jim Thomas argued to stick with April.
Thomas said the city should study the effects of the reopening and factor the results into eventual proposals for a complete or partial closure of Copenhagen Drive in the future. The decision to reopen the street and revoke other outdoor dining encroachment permits in town by April 18 was determined by a 3-2 vote, with Clarke and Mayor Charlie Uhrig dissenting.
This article appears in Mar 24-31, 2022.
