Downtown Orillia Management Board (DOMB) members have voted to eliminate the weekly See You on the Patio program, opting instead to host the event only during sidewalk sales, the summer block party and the classic car show.
Michael Fredson, the chair of the DOMB, says a motion was passed at a board meeting Tuesday to significantly reduce the See You on the Patio program. City council is expected to approve the motion at its next meeting, April 25.
“We did a survey of the membership, and it was pretty much evenly split to either have it every weekend or just on event weekends,” Fredson tells OrilliaMatters. “The way that the vote on the board went down, it had people deciding on the event weekends.”
According to Fredson, downtown business owners are divided on the issue. For some, the program is a boost for business, but for others, they feel it hurts business, he explained.
“There is also a base of membership that believes that the street being open for drivers is very important for business,” he said. “There is another half of membership that believes that having a pedestrian-friendly downtown is what drives their business.”
Fredson says the program benefited most restaurants in the downtown core that were shut down during various periods of time due to the pandemic. Some restaurants that were not directly a part of the program have said it was damaging to their business.
For most retail businesses, the feedback was the program didn’t do anything for them, Fredson said. However, businesses specifically located near popular restaurants did benefit from the event, he said.
“By and large it was a well-received event by the community,” Fredson conceded, “but there was still that split from our membership on whether we wanted the street closures or not.”
Samir Hanna, owner of Sanafir Mediterranean Restaurant, says the See You on the Patio program was his “bread and butter” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I understand a couple of people don’t really like the idea,” he said, “but their business isn’t really impacted by the See You on the Patio program because they close at 5 p.m. regardless.”
Hanna says local residents loved the program and so did tourists.
“It helped us restaurant owners make a little bit of extra money to help us during the downtime in the winter,” he said. “I don’t understand why it’s not going to happen. This is really sad to hear.”
He hopes city council will step in to revive the program and transform it back to being a weekly event.
“A small business like myself just barely survives on peanuts,” he said. “To take this helpful program away from us is just not appropriate.”
Coun. Rob Kloostra, council’s representative on the DOMB, says although the program was successful, it was subsidized by the economic recovery task force.
“We aren’t really flush with cash at the DOMB right now,” he said. “The last two years, we’ve used money for these programs.”
With expenditures coming up for the DOMB, Kloostra says it’s time to get back to business “as normal” for 2022.
“I’m not saying that this program can’t be revisited in the future,” he said. “We just have to be responsible for all of the membership when we make these decisions.”
Kloostra says an amendment could still be brought to the city council table through a request to help pay for the return of the weekly See You on the Patio program.
“Anything is possible,” he said.
