Mayor John Tory said the city is trying to make it as easy as possible to build winter terraces for Toronto restaurants as indoor dining rooms are closed in four of Ontario’s COVID-19 hotspots.
On Tuesday, the City Planning and Housing Committee recommended that City Council continue to allow Patios in Toronto to operate on a “more liberal basis” during the winter, Tory said, and that the mayor’s executive committee also recommended additional measures to clear the way. For the winter patio.
“We need to give businesses the flexibility to work safely and wherever possible during the winter months. Said Tory in a news release released Wednesday.
Patios on sidewalks should be demolished before snow starts to fall, Tory noted.
Recommendations to the city council include expanding the caf program to keep sidewalk cafes operational until April 14, 2021, and waiving fees for those dabas.
While some restaurant owners point out that winter dabas are too expensive to operate, Tory told CP24 that some hope the new regulations will help.
“(It) is to give restaurants a place to go for people to give them a chance when they are severely damaged and it will be heated,” Tory told CP24 on Wednesday morning.
“It’s not necessarily like room temperature, but a lot of people in the right places at the right time can take advantage of it and at the same time help their restaurants and bars.”
Many restaurants around the city have already set up tents on their patio to protect people from adverse weather.
“I would love for someone to try the balloons we see in New York and elsewhere. Bentway Park under Gardiner tried it last year … so it’s like that, ”Tory said.
“And it’s subject to some safety checks to make sure they are safe according to the context of the heaters.”
According to city regulations, if the open dining area is covered with a roof, at least two walls of the structure must be open to allow for proper ventilation. Open dining areas with retractable roofs should be open to at least one full side of the structure and the area should not be significantly blocked by “impassable physical barriers”.
Even when indoor dining rooms reopen in the city, winter terraces can be a valuable thing to have for restaurants, Tory said.
“We are trying to make it easier for them in every aspect we can do more business with the indoor dining that we have just closed and some people are worried about indoor dining even when others are open in a few weeks,” Meyer said.
The Mayor of Brampton is concerned about the long closure of indoor dining
Indoor dining rooms, fitness centers and movie theaters were closed for 28 days on October 10 in the Toronto, Ottawa, and Peel regions, with COVID-19 operation when the province converted three areas back to a revised version of Stage 2.
Similar restrictions were extended to the York area on October 19.
It is not yet clear whether the province plans to lift or extend those restrictions after the 28-day period expires.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said he hopes the province will agree to reopen restaurants next month.
“I have expressed my concerns to the Premier that restaurants will be closed when we have no coverage in our restaurants. I spoke to him the night before the decision was announced. After these 28 days, as long as the COVID cases are stable, they can reopen,” he told a news conference on Wednesday.
“My concern is that this is not the first time this has happened in the cold weather Patios outdoor dining spring. So we are reporting these issues to the province. It’s going to be the hardest pitch. “
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