Nelson city council won’t be allowing a new year-round cafe to go up on Baker Street until it can spend more time deciding how city sidewalks should be used.
The Royal Bar and Grill has asked council for permission to install a year-round version of its summer patio as part of an exterior renovation.
The request was already before council once in December, when it was deferred until staff could create a sidewalk cafe policy for the downtown, which isn’t ready yet.
Councillor Donna Macdonald said she still wants to see a report before she okays any new installations on Baker Street’s sidewalks.
“Sidewalks are for people. If we start carving them off and allowing businesses to use them, we can only do that if people come first,” she said, adding Baker Street already sees high volumes of traffic, and many of its sidewalks are fairly narrow.
“I’m sorry to hold up the Royal on what they want to do, but in all conscience I can’t agree to this... we can’t assume this is going to be the only application we get for the sidewalk.”
Nelson already has two permanent sidewalk cafes in its downtown, one at John Ward Fine Coffee (formerly Jigsaws) and one on the Hume Hotel, but Macdonald said both those were approved because the sidewalks in those areas were wider than average.
Councillor Kim Charlesworth says she’d also like to see a sidewalk cafe policy lay down guidelines for “heating the outdoors” — something she says at least one local businesses is doing at the moment, and which council shouldn’t sanction.
Council agreed to pick up the Royal’s request once a cafe policy is finished. The Baker Street establishment still has a two year license with the city for its summer patio.