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Graham, Donna

From:

Sent: Monday, March 21, 2022 1:20 PM
To: Board of Aldermen

Subject: Please Keep Outdoor Dining

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

Dear Alderman,

I loved having Outdoor Dining downtown.

As a person restricted to a wheel chair, dining outside gave me more accessibility and freedom to
move around (shop, eat, socialize, etc.).

It gives downtown a lively and social feeling, adding to the community vibe. Being outside in the
fresh air is also a big plus.

Both myself and my husband love the Outdoor Dining.

PLEASE keep downtown Alive!

Kind Regards,

Jill Rengstorff

7 Stevens St

Nashua NH 03060-4913

Graham, Donna

ee a |
From: Jeff Bois

Sent: Monday, March 28, 2022 4:31 PM

To: Board of Aldermen

Subject: Thanks to the BOA

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

As a lifetime Nashua resident, taxpayer and small business owner, I am just writing to express my support for
the Nashua BOA in general and specifically for Derek who has become the new focus for the faceless Facebook
protestor Steve Hansen. | believe in the first amendment and truly believe that intelligent debate is vital to
democracy, but the cowardly behaviors by some individuals like Steve online are destructive if left

unchecked. While I’m sure many of you are active on social media, some likely are not, so I wanted to address
Steven Hansen’s recent behavior. I noticed on The Nashua Scoop Facebook page that he was bragging about
emailing complaints to the board and others. He has been a delusional negative voice on Facebook lately based
on his resistance to outdoor dining, the mayor, the board and generally everything to do with local politics. He
spreads misinformation, he attacks anyone who doesn’t agree with him, he posts fake reviews on downtown
businesses he has never even been to (see examples attached) and targets Nashua residents personally based on
their business relationships, among other things... I literally saw him verbally attack a single mother of two
with cancer just because she was a restaurant server downtown. He is not even confident enough to have a
Facebook profile picture. It is unbelievable and unfortunate for our city. I have no desire to insert myself into
this discussion, and I’m sure there are more formal processes in place to address these baseless allegations, but I
did want to express my support because it is too often the maniacs like Steve are the loudest voices. I guess my
point is basically CONSIDER THE SOURCE.

I would say the only “criticism” I have of this process is letting it drag on so long and giving Wingate such a
platform to promote social dissonance. This has emboldened his small but vocal crew of north Nashua folks
that are clearly angry they are being inconvenienced by us peasants on the streets. I mean how dare we try to
make money for our families by serving Nashua residents on their own streets...it clearly delays them getting to
the pharmacy and country club on time. :)

Cheers!

Jeff Bois

Owner, Stella Blu

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< Steven's post oe CQ
Yeas Steven Hanson E¥ doesn't recommend

‘ee Stella Blu.
20m -@

Owner prefers profits over safety of the citizens
of Nashua by supporting the barriers on Main St.

He just wants to put tables out tax free, take away
tax dollars, spend tax dollars and cause us alla
burden with traffic. The Nashua Police and Fire
departments have both stated this increases
response times. That should end all discussions
on barriers and responsible restaurant owners
should all inform the city they do not want
barriers for the safety of their customers and
general public.

Why do they suddenly need to seat people ona
tax payer funded street to earn a profit? How did
they survive in the years past?

Also, Lory Donahue is an extremely rude and

condescending person. Does not even care about
others, their safety and has a complete disregard
for all the non restaurants businesses on Main St.

FL = *s8 Cc’. om . ay, ws

11:36
< Reviews give

Stella Blu
Owner prefers profits over sat

Martha's Exchange Resta
Owner prefers profits over sat

The Peddler's Daughter - |
They want to bring the barrier

ur? OAT ea Local Kitchen & Wine

Graham, Donna

From: Doris Hohensee

Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2022 10:37 AM

To: Board of Aldermen

Subject: Please, no more concrete barriers this summer

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

Dear Aldermen and Alderwomen,
The concrete barriers pose safely problems: for fire, police and emergency vehicles.

The concrete barriers block access for elderly and handicap parking. No all patrons of the down town area can
walk long distances to and from parking garages in inclimate weather.

The concrete barriers may help restaurants, but undermines other businesses. The pandemic is over. The City
should not subsidizing restaurants.

Why is the City granting tax-free use of sidewalks and streets to restaurant owners, but not other down town
businesses?

Please stop discriminating for and against business owners.
Eliminate the concrete barriers to make a more walkable down town this summer.
Doris Hohensee

15 Swart Terrace, Nashua

Graham, Donna

From: Kat Peters

Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2022 11:33 AM
To: Board of Aldermen

Subject: NO Jersey Barriers

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

From: Kat Peters
To: boa@nashuanh.gov <boa@nashuanh.gov>
Sent: Mon, Feb 28, 2022 9:57 am

Dear Alderwomen and Aldermen:

I am not in favor of Main Street jersey barrier at all. ALL stores and
banks need their parking back finally especially now that you sold High St
lot ;-( We need meter revenue. Handicap needs their spots back. Barriers
jam up traffic most esp. all the times there are accidents on the

highway, and looked like slum graffiti. Restaurants across the rest of the
city were not catered to and handed a street lane, why play favorites.
Covid is done. indoor tables are all used now. Bad enough they have
tables on the sidewalk, they don't need to take away our roads, then use
tables only 3 nights out of 7. And the cost to place and remove

them. There is zero reason they selfishly need to take our main road
through the city again.

Let the ambulances get to the hospital in time, they come from all the
towns west of us

Sincerely yours,

Mrs. Kathryn Peterson
Cortez Drive
Nashua, NH 03062

Graham, Donna

From: Laurie Ortolano

Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2022 4:35 PM

Ta; Graham, Donna

Ce: Board of Aldermen; Cummings, Tim; Sullivan, Matthew; Kathy Cardin; Blaisdell, Marylou;
Richard Lannan

Subject: Omit my email today for the board packet and use this one.

Attachments: RTK 2022-752(Mayor, ED) Response 2022-04-04-2.pdf; Nashua Downtown Barriers PIC

2022-02-11.pdf

CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.

Donna,
I had a math error. Here is the corrected Document

Good Morning,

As you all know, the Mayor's Office sent on March 25, 2022, raw data collected in July and
August for Expanded Outdoor Dining. The raw data came with no explanation whatsoever.

As you all know, I wrote back to the Mayor's office and asked for any records that would offer
an explanation for the data collected. Yesterday, April 4, 2022, I received a response with the
following information contained in the records. The Mayor created a fictitious story with
unverifiable data to maintain expanded outdoor dining and barriers for 2022.

[1] the survey was conducted in 2021

[2] The survey was conducted by an intern named Alexander Chen. He appears to be an intern
who worked for Tim Cummings in Economic Development. His last day of employment was
August 25, 2021.

[3] Mr. Chen created a barrier report on August 13, 2021, but continued to gather data to the
end of August and it appears the numbers are lower than what was tallied in July.

[4] If San Francisco’s claims that almost all customers prefer outdoor dining on nice day, it
mean their business volume is very low and that business faces significant challenges. It is

doubtful that expanded outdoor dining will impact profitability.

[5] The Mayor’s statements in the State of the City address were not credible and the City
continues to misrepresent information which erodes public trust and confidence in leadership.

[6] The Mayor stated that expanded outdoor dining brought at least 400,000 patrons downtown
to utilize the seating. Apparently this was based on Mr. Chen’s 2021 barrier study. And these
patrons created millions of dollars of revenue for the city.

[7] Based on the data gathered by Mr. Chen, the average number of people per restaurant using
outdoor seating is 10.8. This number is based on adding the total number of outdoor seats
utilized from the raw data - 9700 outdoor seaters in July and August for 39 days of data
gathered for 23 restaurants that had expanded outdoor dining.

[8] It is important to note that some of that outdoor seating capacity already existed as
Downtown Nashua has had outdoor seating for years.

[9] It does not appear that 400,000 came downtown for expanded outdoor dining. Even if one
extrapolated 9700 outdoor seats utilized for 2 months and ran the numbers out for 8 months,
that would result in under 40,000 outdoor diners. If each person spent on average $75.00, the
revenue would be approximately $3,000,000 in sales, not millions of dollars of additional
revenue. Mind you, we have no idea what typical outdoor dining has generated because the City
collected no data.

[10] The Barrier Report is as follows:

Barrier Report— Alex Chen 8-12-2021 and the Mayor’s State of the City remarks:

While talking to businesses, patrons, and individuals simply walking

through downtown, I have gained some insights into how everyone

views the outdoor seating. The biggest proponents of the outdoorseating were not

the restaurants with this additional seating, but the people who were using it. Aftertalking to
hundreds of people, the large majority of the downtown population and those who frequent it
love the outdoor seating. I have listened to people rant about how amazing it is

to have endlessly, with occasional comments about traffic being a little worse

but not unbearable, the inside of the barriers needing to be painted as beautifully as the
outside of the barriers, and suggestions about

which restaurants need more space for it and which need less. Every day at lpm, 3pm,

5pm, and 7pm, I have kept track of how

many people were sitting outside at eachrestaurant. The following

are some key points from that data, and the data collected from talking to the downtown
merchants.

- The overall average number of people
using the outdoor seating at any given time is 68 people, but thatfluctuates heavily depending on

the time of day, and the day itself.

¢ At 7pm on July 10th there were 264 people sitting outside, then the following afternoon at
lpm there were only 6.

- Martha's exchange alone averages at
21 customers using outdoor seating at any given time, and often peaks late at night around 65.

- Surf, MT's, Stella Blu, Fratello's, and Oddfellows can see anywhere from 10 to 30
customers sitting outside at one time during peak hours.

- San Francisco Kitchen claims 80% of all customers choose outdoor seating if the weather is nice.

- Casa Vieja and Fratello's claim that almost
if not all customers choose to sit outside if the weather is nice.

-MT's, Oddfellows, and The Flight Center all claim to have an outdoor seating pick rate of 75%.

The largest complaints from businesses have been a lack of parking, an unusually high frequency
of homeless individuals bothering customers, and a general decline in overall customers,
especially during the height of COVID-

19. The biggest complaints from patrons have been slightly more traffic

onMain Street (although most follow that up by saying that if you know the side streets

well enough you can avoid the traffic), less

parking, not enough outdoor seating at some of the restaurants, and the fact that the cones to
create bike lanes are often in the way of traffic, or knockedover and blocking a bike lane.

At the end of the month I will finalize all spreadsheets and graphs, and

make sure it is distributedto anyone who would like a copy. This will include

all data from counting

how many people are sittingoutside each day, along with a graph for each restaurant
with outdoor seating showing its trends, average users, etc.

The Mavors State of the City address, the Mayor stated:

"Positive economic impact, the expanded dining cannot be overstated, a 2021 study of visitors
to our bars during the summer months reveals that at least 400,000 patrons came downtown to
enjoy the expanded outdoor dining.

If we consider how much each one spends this adds up to millions of dollars, millions of doliars
of additional revenue

A recent economic survey reveals that 80% of the visitors to main street come for the
restaurants and bars."

Attached is the Downtown Barrier GIS drawings labelled by business, and the Mayor office
records sent April 4, 2022.

Sincerely,
Laurie Ortolano
41 Berkeley St.