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Pleasanton restaurants dismantle parklets
Outdoor dining at parklets in Pleasanton is coming to an end. Restaurants were ordered to remove the spaces that had enabled them to serve more customers outdoors during the pandemic.
PLEASANTON, Calif. - It's fair to say that curbside eating platforms known as parklets, saved a lot of restaurants from going under. The question is: are parklets here to stay or a passing pandemic accommodation?.
At Pleasanton's OYO restaurant, owner Maurice Dissels, watched as his $10,000, 5-month-old parklet was dismantled.
The City of Pleasanton has directed all parklet owners to dismantle them by Friday so that it can clean the streets under them and trim the trees above.
"That's been one of our concerns is the timing," said Dissels.
With the COVID Omicron variant spreading like wildfire, it was a bad time to lose such an important, expensive and more Covid-safe asset.
"Sixty percent of our seating over the last several months and now that's been taken away. So, we're not sure what's gonna happen now," said Dissels.
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That's especially true when people are highly concerned about any indoor activity where folks gather.
"Most of our phone calls that we get for reservations, people, the first thing they want to know is are there outdoor seating. Folks are not comfortable sitting inside," said Dissels.
Parklets have proven to be popular.
"It's been fantastic for the last year and a half or so. It's kept sort of main street alive," said Pleasanton resident Eric Ryan.
But. some non-restaurant business folks said they are unfair when they first came to be last summer.
"A parklet consumes what four or five or six spaces that's not in the best interest of every business in a downtown," said The Wine Steward Shop owner Jim Denham.
"The reality here on Main Street, there's plenty of parking right off the street," said resident Ryan.
Like working remotely from home, parklets may have become an unstoppable trend for the long haul.
"That's here to stay. That dining tent is here to stay," said Dissels.
"Much more festive and it brings people to downtown and you get to shop in some of the local shops here," said Ryan.
Will Pleasanton's parklets return?
"The city has promised us that by Marsh 1 they will have site plans ready to go to deliver to the businesses' said Dissels
Pleasanton officials did not respond to KTVU's inquiries about the parklets program.