PORTLAND — Downtown merchants are objecting to the city’s plan to start collecting long-ignored fees from businesses that put benches on sidewalks in front of their establishments.

Janis Beitzer, executive director of Portland’s Downtown District, told a City Council committee Tuesday night that the $80 annual fee has never been assessed, and came to light only recently, after a couple of new businesses were told by city officials that it would be.

Councilors Edward Suslovic and David Marshall voted to remove the fee from the ordinance. That recommendation now must go before the full City Council.

Suslovic and Marshall are members of the council’s Public Safety Committee, which met Tuesday night to review the city’s Outdoor Dining Ordinance.

“It came as a surprise to me when, about a month ago, we found out that the city was going to charge a fee (for benches),” Beitzer said. “It has never been enforced.”

Beitzer said benches – unlike dining tables and chairs, for which owners pay outdoor-dining fees – can enhance a streetscape. They are supposed to be removed when a business closes for the day.

But Mary Costigan, a city attorney, argued that benches occupy public space and that their placement should at least be regulated by the city.

“They are taking up public space; it’s kind of like leasing space,” Costigan told the committee.

“Tables and chairs sell a product, but benches are an amenity that sells nothing,” Beitzer said.

Costigan will craft guidelines for regulating the placement of benches. Suslovic said the City Council will address the issue on Aug. 1.

 

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at: dhoey@pressherald.com

 

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