City staff recommend that CafeTO be made a permanent, year-round program
Toronto’s popular CafeTO program could soon be made permanent through the creation of a new “streamlined” registration process that will allow participating businesses to operate expanded sidewalk patios year-round.
The program was first established in the summer of 2020 as a way to give bars and restaurants that were prohibited from serving customers indoors a leg up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was then brought back this past spring and more than 1,200 restaurants ultimately participated, representing a 51 per cent increase from 2020.
In a report that will go before the city’s executive committee next week, staff recommend that the program be brought back for 2022 and that all permit fees be waived once again as a way of supporting a hospitality industry that has struggled.
But the report also recommends that staff get to work on establishing a new registration process for “future, permanent CaféTO sidewalk cafés” so that those businesses applying in 2022 need not apply again.
As part of that process staff would also draft a fee structure that would help the city recoup some of the costs associated with operating the program. Those costs are pegged at $5 million in 2022.
“CafeTO has been one of our most successful pandemic relief programs. It has positively impacted our city and it has positively impacted hospitality business that call Toronto home and that is because we made the decision, as simple as it may be, to turn parking spaces into patios,” Mayor John Tory said during a press conference on Wednesday morning.
“We know that people want this program to return, I want this program to return but that is not just because it is good for business. It changed the look and the feel of our city for the better.”
There were approximately 940 curb lane closures to accommodate expanded CafeTO patios this year, resulting in about 12 linear kilometres of public space being turned over to bars and restaurants.
In the report, staff say that “more work is required to monitor the impact of long-term curb lane closures on the travel network” particularly as the city returns to “pre-pandemic traffic volumes.”
For that reason, they say that 2022 is proposed as a “a final transition year before permanent program criteria are adopted to determine the permanent regulations of curb lane/parklet cafés.”
Speaking with reporters, Tory said that he would like to see the permanent CafeTO program include “some street located structures in suitable locations” that would help “change the look and the feel” of a program which has largely used temporary infrastructure, such as pylons.
“This city is poised to have strong recovery, all the right stuff is here and these measures are going to make sure that happens,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war's toll on Palestinian children
An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.
Premiers not being truthful about carbon tax, Trudeau says while sparks fly in Ottawa
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Conservative premiers across the country are 'not telling the truth' when it comes to the carbon tax. Trudeau's comments came as fresh sparks were flying in Ottawa at a recalled House of Commons committee.
Crypt near Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner could fetch US$400,000 at auction
A one-space mausoleum crypt in the vicinity of Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner will go on auction Saturday, when it is expected to reach between US$200,000 and $400,000.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
'Ninja,' Twitch's biggest streamer, is diagnosed with skin cancer
American gamer and Twitch superstar, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins, revealed he was diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.