Manhattan Beach Mayor Gets A Big 'No' On Reopening Outdoor Dining
MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — The two Manhattan Beach City Council members responsible for temporarily closing down the city's public outdoor dining "parklets" held firmly to their decision during last night's City Council meeting. Mayor Suzanne Hadley, who attempted to play the role of a friendly prosecutor, was unable to get council members Steve Napolitano or Richard Montgomery to "walk the plank" and reverse their decision or reiterate comments they'd already made during the discussion of the decision.
The two council members who have been appointed by council to serve on the Long Term Business Solutions Ad Hoc committee provided the reasons for their decision, mainly that council members are responsible for public safety first and foremost and that the rise of residents across Los Angeles County, including Manhattan Beach, testing positive for the coronavirus has impacted the number of ICUs beds available and hospital emergency rooms too substantially to allow outdoor dining to continue in Manhattan Beach.
Napolitano called it a "common sense precaution" and said the closure was "about reducing risk to the greatest extent possible." Montgomery pointed to the data that shows the numbers for new positive test cases of coronavirus increasing at an alarming rate. "You cannot close your eyes," he said, adding that council needed to "do the right thing for the city."
Hadley said she would have made a different decision if she was on the subcommittee. Of the decision, she said, "Was I shocked? Yes. My jaw hit the floor." She also said, "I feel the need from you two [Napolitano and Montgomery] to do something." Her position was also that residents deserved to know why the two temporarily pulled the plug on the public outdoor dining "parklets".
As the mayor maneuvered through the decision to temporarily ban outdoor dining, she and council member Joe Franklin clearly wanted the outdoor dining decks to re-open as soon as possible, if not immediately. Council member Hildy Stern, who had earlier shared her support of the new ban, clearly supported the decision by the ad hoc committee. As an impasse was obvious, Hadley could not even get a motion made to reverse the city's new outdoor dining ban. Neither she nor Franklin made one.
Before the discussion of the new temporary outdoor dining ban in the city, two restaurateurs weighed in: Mike Zislis and David Slay, neither one adamant about council reopening the "parklets" immediately and seemingly a bit resigned to the current situation. In December, after Los Angeles County had put an end to outdoor dining the night before Thanksgiving, four restaurateurs had vehemently implored council to take action to help them. Mike Simms and the owner of the new Nando in Downtown Manhattan Beach joined Zislis and Slay in pleading for assistance. That night, too, saw countless residents weigh in on the matter. Last night, less than a handful did.
Napolitano told council he'd like to re-open the "parklets," the idea of which he came up with in the ad hoc committee when they worked with the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business + Professional Association and other key business owners and organizations to create the public outdoor dining "parklet" workaround to the county's outdoor dining ban, as soon as it is safe to do so.
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This article originally appeared on the Manhattan Beach Patch
