Board of Aldermen 04-12-2022 Page 21
fact is that anything related to the viatic use of the right of way, the owner of the fee interest has no right to control the city.
You can determine that with or without the agreement of the fee owner.
Now non-viatic uses. If the property owner or the owner of the fee interests objects, well then perhaps if it is a non-viatic
use and the court determines that as such, that objection could be recognized by the court and the court could order the
non-viatic use not take place.
Alderman Cathey
Thank you. | thought that might be the case and | would not want the city to place barriers where a property owner would
then say, | don't want a non-viatic use purpose in front of my building. So in theory, we could place the barriers there and
then the property owner who owns both San Francisco Kitchen and Wingate’s could say no to extended outdoor dining
and then therefore we have barriers with nothing for extended outdoor dining behind them, which seems like a waste and
defeats the purpose if it's just going to sit there empty. It also feels like the property owner might then think, well if the
barriers are going to be there anyway | might as well allow extended outdoor dining when he might not want that. And so
| think it behooves the city to find out what the property owner wants before we - or what the property owner wants in
relation to non-viatic use before we go ahead and set up the barriers in that particular location. | think that should apply to
all of the property owners generally but in this specific case, we should know before we place barriers.
President Wilshire
I'm going to call on Alderman Klee because | think she might have an answer for that.
Alderman Klee
| do and thank you for bringing that point up. As | said, | had spoken to him and he was in agreement with it. What the
agreement he thought had been made was originally Wingate Pharmacy had told San Francisco Kitchen they could put
tables there only from 5 to 10 and had to remove them. If they put the table up against their very large plate glass
window, that it was a not a shatterproof and that it could break and it could hurt someone and that was her risk. Who's
gonna want to do that? Who's gonna want to take that on? So for all intent purposes, she really could not do that. They
came back and said that she did not have to move the tables. That's what was told to the owner of the property. She did
not have to move the tables and the property owner said he would assume all liability. The truth is, | also said to him, well
if you put a table there knowing that there is a liability, | will contact the city and ask them to certify that someone is not
being put into danger and therefore | don't think that that table really should or would be able to be put there.
| gave him my plan, my idea. He liked it very much. He did not want to say no to San Francisco Kitchen but he has two
mentors that he absolutely loves. He thinks that they're very good. Wingate has been extraordinary to him and did not
want to irritate or aggravate them in any way, shape, or form. He has been trying to work with them. | said to him if we
put the barriers up, would she be allowed to put the tables up? He said yes. But to add to this, that's when | said to him |
want to make sure that Wingate is protected in this and that they have a handicapped spot because they were losing the
one that they had in front of them. That 15 minute parking, they're the ones that use it mostly for the pickup and the drop
off. | wanted to ensure that they were taken care of and that they weren't harmed by this and that's why | put forward
those other two items. So yes.
Alderman Cathey
Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
So no shock to anybody here that this has been a very tricky issue and that communication has been very difficult in a lot
of areas. What | have found as the Alderman representing downtown is that there has been a lot of passion on the side of
people advocating for the removal of the barriers and a lot of pressure on people who state that they need it for their
livelihood. | have heard from Wingate’s repeatedly. | have tried to accommodate them last year on a number of
occasions and more specifically here, | think, we did accommodate their needs for parking for most of the street. But | do
think that it's not fair to a business that needs enough space to actually benefit from it, that we removed one to benefit a
business that now has access to a lot more parking.
| also found that unfortunately a lot of the restaurants that were spoken to and several of the businesses as well were not
given entirely accurate information as | would see it. They were told things about pharmacies that don't have any parking
and we're not aware of the municipal parking behind that pharmacy. The individuals from the pharmacy have represented
