Long Beach Residents Have Mixed Feelings After Al Fresco Dining is Removed

All of Long Beach’s al fresco parklet dining areas are gone. 

The city cleared the COVID era structures, much to the excitement of some residents but disappointment to some businesses. 

Some residents are disappointed because these parking spots were not only life savers during COVID, but still brought big business on sunny Long Beach days. 

 “We are a beach community and we get less than 30 days a year of rain, 90% of the time it’s usable space,” Rob Frontino, restaurant owner, said.

Frontino owns three restaurants along Second street, all had COVID era parklets, and he wanted to keep them until there was a permanent solution.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the temporary program has completely gone away and the city is backlogged with applications to make them permanent,” Frontino said.

It could take 3 to 6 months before any of those permits are approved and the new parklets are built. That’s if businesses can afford the process.

With permits and construction costs, the price tag could hit 50,000.

“The permit fee is between $8,000 to $10,000 dollars,” Frontino said.

 “We lost a lot of parking and parking is a huge huge deal here,” Eva Harter, a Long Beach resident, said. 

 Residents like Harter like having parking back. Scarce parking had always been a problem here even before COVID. 

“I’m glad they are gone, I think they should stay gone,” Harter said.

“Sales tax revenue that comes from those parklets is far more than the revenue they get from the meter parking spot,” Frontino said. 

Residents do value the parking spot a little bit more, but it is unclear exactly when the city will approve the permanent permits but it could be by the beginning of summer.