Fountain Valley close to approving permanent outdoor dining

The Fountain Valley City Council on Tuesday is poised to approve on its second reading of an ordinance that will allow for restaurants to offer outdoor dining permanently.

When the ordinance was first introduced July 20, the council voted unanimously in favor of the outdoor dining option.

Giving restaurants the opportunity to serve customers outdoors was a widespread solution employed to aid local eateries that had fallen on hard times due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Following shutdowns due to the pandemic and at the direction of the council from a meeting on June 2, 2020, city staff created a temporary emergency use permit that gave restaurants and commercial businesses the ability to operate on private sidewalks and in private parking lots.

The city has since received 73 applications to take advantage of the temporary use permits for the purpose of outdoor dining, and there have been 44 such permits granted.

A staff report indicated that the permits issued due to state and local pandemic restrictions will soon expire. Teresa Razo, the president of the Fountain Valley Restaurant Assn. and the owner of Cambalache Grill, confirmed those permits are set to expire on Sept. 30.

The proposed ordinance, if approved, will allow established outdoor dining areas to continue past October, a welcomed development for restaurant owners concerned about what might come due to the recent rise in COVID-19 infection rates.

One of the ways in which city officials have proposed to help restaurants is by relaxing parking requirements for the shopping centers in which they are located.

“It makes a big difference,” Razo said. “And the reason why is because still a lot of people want to sit outside and feel it’s safer outside. When you have the ability to have them reduce the standards of parking and allowing us to be outside and to build something to stay outside, like an additional patio, it would be a lifesaver, especially if things go back to a tier color and we’re only [allowed to serve] outside. It would help us overall.”

Councilman Glenn Grandis said he felt that flexibility in how businesses were able to use their private parking lots was “long overdue.”

Grandis added the city’s parking standards were among the most restrictive in the county. He contends that bringing parking standards in line with neighboring cities makes Fountain Valley a more business-friendly community.

“The big thing was just getting our parking in line with the rest of the county,” Grandis said. “We were so restrictive that it was impacting landlords to bring in the types of businesses that we wanted in our community.”

The regular meeting of the Fountain Valley City Council will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

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