Mayor Jenny Durkan and the City of Seattle are rolling out changes that might be the biggest boost struggling Capitol Hill food and drink venues can get as we head into the wet and cold Seattle winter and what seems likely to be many more months of COVID-19 restrictions.

The mayor announced Wednesday afternoon that the city will extend temporary street permits that allow outdoor seating though Halloween of 2021 and that the Seattle Fire Department is stepping up its process to allow free tent and heating permits to venues that comply with fire codes and strict inspection requirements.

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The changes will also allow businesses to make a more long-lasting investment in their street spaces as the city will now allow “outdoor dining equipment” to remain in place every day and around the clock meaning venues can put more permanent structures in place and cut down on time consuming setup and breakdown. “It’s like setting up the Block Party every single night,” Linda Morton of Capitol Hill’s Terra Plata tells CHS.

“As a representative for Seattle Restaurant Alliance, it’s been interesting to see what will help,” Morton said. “This is probably the biggest help that gives these places an opportunity to add capacity if they can get seats outside.”

The city announced that the Seattle Fire Department will immediately begin issuing the free, 90-day tent permits “to help small businesses continue their operations outdoors during the COVID -19 pandemic”.

All free tent permits must align with SFD regulations, including complying with the fire code. All business owners who paid for a tent permit since July 1, 2020 will be refunded. The permits are limited to 90-days due to the need for frequent inspection to maintain compliance with building and fire codes. In addition, SFD will also issue free heating permits to businesses operating outdoors due to COVID-19, effective immediately and continuing through October 31, 2021. Permittees who already paid for a heating permit since July 1, 2020 will be refunded.

In Wednesday’s announcement, Durkan also said the city will continue to issue free sidewalk café and curb space permits to allow restaurants, retail stores, vending trucks and carts “to operate in the sidewalk or curb space while the free street closure permits allow businesses to operate in one or more blocks in front of their business.”

The city has issued 151 free street use permits so far, including 11 blocks opened for business use including Capitol Hill’s Optimism Brewing which can spill its beer garden out onto Broadway Court.

The new effort comes as Seattle and King County are beginning to move past the phase process used to provide a framework of restrictions during the summer to help slow the spread of COVID-19 to a more surgical approach to reopenings that has made monitoring current infection and positivity rate metrics tantamount to checking weather reports and advisories. In recent reports, King County has been recording around 92 new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks — well above the threshold officials say we should be shooting for.

While the changes will help venues like Terra Plata and neighbor Mamnoon thanks to their location on streets friendly to the needs of setting up outdoor seating areas, some Capitol Hill restaurants and bars will continue to struggle due to a lack of space or resources to add the new tent and heater setups. Elsewhere, the new permanence could mean issues for setups that block sidewalks or make it difficult for differently abled people to access.

Bars that have been especially hard hit might find some relief in the changes. Venues like Canon that have dabbled in retail to try to cover expenses may finally be able to justify more fully reopening with more capacity under the ongoing, more-restrictive COVID-19 limitations on drinking establishments.

Morton said Wednesday that the new effort around permits, tents, and heaters is hoped to allow many owners to invest more deeply in longer-lasting solutions and could help justify reopening for some venues where the more temporary setups just didn’t pencil out. For Terra Plata, the change will probably mean an end to leasing some of the equipment they need for street seating and purchasing their own gear. The changes might also mean a new run on equipment after a series of shortages and demand spikes in recent months for everything from face masks to plexiglass. Heaters might be “the new plexiglass,” Morton quipped.

The city says that more changes are coming to try to help Seattle’s small businesses and the restaurant and bar scene with “creative new policies to help small business owners operate outside in a way that’s comfortable, safe, and healthy for their customers.” More information on the “new initiatives” will be released in coming weeks, the city said.

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