Larry Wilson: Opening a window to more Pasadena al fresco dining

Hooray, hooray, it’s the first of May, outdoor …

Well, never mind. But here in the springiest of the spring months, the time has also come for al fresco dining to get a boost, and thanks to a decision in late April by the Pasadena Planning Commission, it looks like it’s going to be happily easier going forward to nosh out of doors in the Crown City.

The commission “voted unanimously to propose that the City Council codify three emergency measures that streamlined the review process for restaurateurs who added amenities during the pandemic to enhance dining accessibility for patrons,” as new west San Gabriel Valley staff writer Teresa Liu reported in these pages.

As we have been celebrating for years on this page, the red-tape cutting for restaurateurs has been one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning with when cities around the country began allowing the taking of formerly restricted sidewalk and parking-space areas for outdoor seating back when it was suddenly against the rules to dine indoors for understandable health reasons.

Remember how exciting that was? After being locked up at home for months on end, with only those weirdo pandemic picnics in our yards with family and friends allowed for entertaining, being able to eat outside with service from some of our favorite restaurants felt as if a key ritual of human life was finally available to us again.

I’ll never forget having a birthday party for our daughter a couple of years ago on the table in the garden and when it came time to blow out the candles on her cake she craftily waved her hands about, creating a little breeze, to put out the flames rather than breathing all over the communal desert.

So resourceful, smart people can be.

So it’s a rare blessing to find that with the dangers diminishing, local cities are not returning to all their (dumb in the first place) restrictions that bureaucrats for reasons unfathomable to me love to put up, instead embracing a kind of New Orleans-style openness.

I don’t think we’ve quite come to Crescent City-style bar window service of bourbon on crushed ice in to-go cups to wander around our downtowns with, though hope springs eternal.

But, under the recommendations, which still have to be and should soon be approved by the City Council as well, restaurants can continue to operate an outdoor dining area on private property without the obligation to replace or add parking spaces, Teresa reports.

And here’s one of my favorite parts: “In addition, restaurants (including fast-food establishments) and bakeries are allowed to install walk-up windows using a by-right process. This means owners don’t have to obtain a minor conditional-use permit or CUP approval, a process that typically requires a public hearing and could span four to six months.”

“By right” is one of the sweetest terms in the city-planning vocabulary. It means that you have an automatic ability to do something — build a house or an ADU of a certain size, for instance — rather than having to petition to do so, or getting your insufferable neighbor’s approval.

Plus: “Furthermore, restaurants can sell alcohol on site by going through an administrative CUP process instead of a public hearing for CUP approval.”

I like the comment from Commissioner, and soon to be Councilman, Rick Cole: “There’s a certain degree of friction that happens in a city, and we keep erecting more and more complicated barriers, particularly (when) most of the restaurants in our city are locally-owned. To start a restaurant in this city and have a go, it’s a huge undertaking.”

An undertaking that our city halls continually make harder, and vastly more expensive. Until they don’t, and get it right.

Wednesday at random

Fully realizing that ficus trees have nasty habits, and mammoth sidewalk-slinging roots, and drop staining purple berries, which customers step on and drag into stores, I am yet always with the fig trees, so happy for their shade, and am fascinated that after all these years of covering the controversy over them in Uptown Whittier, the fight goes on, the (mostly) leafy citizens vs. the (mostly) chainsaw-happy council. Classic! And a perfect subject yesterday for new columnist Mike Sprague, who covered the city for decades as a reporter, and now gets to weigh in. Welcome back, Mike.

Write the public editor at lwilson@scng.com