Toronto restaurant owner says CafeTO red tape is holding back her summer business plans

The owner of two Toronto restaurants says her plans to expand her business this summer through the city’s CafeTO program are getting tangled up in red tape.

Erin Gamelin owns Louis Cifer Brew Works on the Danforth and Stout Irish Pub in Cabbagetown and said she has seen success with the program born out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“These patios are the pulse of the community, as we saw over the last couple of years,” Gamelin told NEWSTALK 1010’s Moore in the Morning last week. “How much vibrancy it brought to the streets, how many families came out, people who were driving by, not even intending to stop, stopped.”

However, she said, this year it’s been harder to get her public-space patio up and running after a back and forth with the city following her CafeTO application.

“Recently, we received notice from the city saying, ‘Hey, don’t start designing anything yet because we need to send you the traffic safety plan.’ I wrote them back saying, we’re already designed and ready to go. What’s this traffic safety plan that we’re just hearing about now?” Gamelin explained.

“The city says, in a few weeks, we’ll send you an approval. Then you can go ahead and design based on the traffic safety plan, then we have to send that back to them for approval,” she said.

Because of that, she anticipates that the entire approval process will be lengthy and doesn’t think she’ll be able to officially open her CafeTO patio until mid-August.

“That’s a big problem. The amount of money that it’s going to cost for restaurants to participate in this [they] are not going to recoup back their money if it’s the middle of the summer,” she said.

According to the city, traffic safety plans – which a spokesperson said have been around since the start of the program in 2020 – are “thoroughly reviewed by staff and are then shared with CafeTO applicants that have been approved for curb lane cafe space.”

While that aspect of the program is not new, building a temporary accessible platform is and appears to be what is holding Gamelin’s business back.

“In previous years, all we had to have was a ramp from the curb to go on to the road. Now they want an accessibility platform -- well they call it a platform, it’s a deck with railings, the whole shebang -- this is not a cheap endeavour. This is going to cost us at least $8,000 to build this and then we have to store it,” she said in a follow up interview with CTV News Toronto.

That requirement was approved by city council in February in an effort to achieve enhanced accessibility and bars and restaurants participating in the program this year have until Aug. 1 to install them.

“The traffic safety plan is a key piece of information that CafeTO operators will need to design their temporary accessible platform,” the city said in an email to CTV News Toronto.

The city said all temporary platform designs must be stamped/signed by a licensed design professional and submitted to the city by July 1. Once approved, the designs can be reused in future years.

On Wednesday, Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie said it’s “unfortunate” to hear that Gamelin is frustrated with the program.

“We have more than 500 restaurants that have applied. So I think that shows the program has a considerable interest,” McKelvie told Moore in the Morning.

“We are opening up public space for profit. So I think we have to do that in a responsible way. That does mean that, this year, you have to have an accessible platform. I think that's important…let's make sure that everybody can have access to that patio,” she said.

According to the city, 1,327 establishments took part in CafeTO in 2022, while 1,213 participated in 2021 and 801 in 2020.

People enjoys drinks and friends on outdoor patios during the COVID-19 pandemic in downtown Toronto on Friday, June 11, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette 

Businesses participating in the program, which launched for the season on Monday, have to pay a one-time application fee of $285 and permit fees are set at $14.56 per square metre for sidewalk patios and $43.70 per square metre for curb lane patios.

Council approved a phased approach to implement new fees after several businesses voiced concerns that additional costs would discourage many from taking part. Next year, the fees will increase by two-thirds before the full amount initially recommended by city staff ($132.42 per square metre) is implemented in 2025.

The CafeTO program started in 2020 as a way to keep restaurants and bars open in the summer months of the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing them to use sidewalks and curb spaces for outdoor seating while indoor dining was prohibited.