<story><title>What a progressive utopia does to outdoor dining</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/california-san-francisco-outdoor-dining-progressive-utopia/620974/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>8f2ab37a-ed6c</author><text>&amp;gt; Cities don&amp;#x27;t want loud drunk people on sidewalks, i.e., a bar scene on the sidewalk. Public alcohol consumption is generally banned in most places in the US, afaik.&lt;p&gt;Which is ironic, because if you sit down anywhere outside in SF for an hour, there&amp;#x27;s a rather high and predictable chance that a person suffering from severe mental illness and&amp;#x2F;or narcotics abuse will park themselves next to you, begin to scream unintelligible sentences, to hurl insults at the patrons and act in a generally threatening fashion. Everybody will try not to make eye contact or acknowledge their presence in any way, hoping they leave of their own accord in a few minutes. You do the usual dance of pretending that the screams aren&amp;#x27;t at all distracting to the conversation you&amp;#x27;re having, while also being barely able to pay attention to anything else, in the off chance you need to dodge something thrown in your general direction. Usually nobody gets hurt, but sometimes you get unlucky and lose the stab lottery. Life goes on.</text></item><item><author>wolverine876</author><text>If you want to take down a fence, first learn why it was built. I can guess at reasons but it would be interesting to hear from a city planner on the reasons and history. My guesses:&lt;p&gt;* The sidewalk is public space. Does the public give away free real estate to the restaurant, to be used to generate revenue by the square foot? If the restaurant wants outdoor dining, they can build it on their own property. Perhaps the city should at least charge rent (in non-pandemic times).&lt;p&gt;* Cities don&amp;#x27;t want loud drunk people on sidewalks, i.e., a bar scene on the sidewalk. Public alcohol consumption is generally banned in most places in the US, afaik.&lt;p&gt;* It obstructs sidewalks, which have an important purpose and were built to a certain capacity. Analogously, should we allow dining in the street, blocking a lane of traffic (structures could be built that would shield patrons from the street). Possibly, there was less foot traffic during the pandemic so the problem wasn&amp;#x27;t as noticeable.&lt;p&gt;* Laws that apply to one person apply to every restaurant in the city. Maybe the temporary pandemic situation limited how many and how did it, and we don&amp;#x27;t want every restaurant building outdoor dining on the sidewalk.&lt;p&gt;The title is inflammatory: Assuming &amp;#x27;progressives&amp;#x27; are bad, caused the issue, the issue is somehow bad. I expect more from the Atlantic than joining the lynch-the-progressives mob.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TedDoesntTalk</author><text>Why is this common in SF but not European cities, where outdoor dining and beer gardens are even more common than SF? (In other words, there’s more opportunity but yet it’s still not common).</text></comment>
<story><title>What a progressive utopia does to outdoor dining</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/california-san-francisco-outdoor-dining-progressive-utopia/620974/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>8f2ab37a-ed6c</author><text>&amp;gt; Cities don&amp;#x27;t want loud drunk people on sidewalks, i.e., a bar scene on the sidewalk. Public alcohol consumption is generally banned in most places in the US, afaik.&lt;p&gt;Which is ironic, because if you sit down anywhere outside in SF for an hour, there&amp;#x27;s a rather high and predictable chance that a person suffering from severe mental illness and&amp;#x2F;or narcotics abuse will park themselves next to you, begin to scream unintelligible sentences, to hurl insults at the patrons and act in a generally threatening fashion. Everybody will try not to make eye contact or acknowledge their presence in any way, hoping they leave of their own accord in a few minutes. You do the usual dance of pretending that the screams aren&amp;#x27;t at all distracting to the conversation you&amp;#x27;re having, while also being barely able to pay attention to anything else, in the off chance you need to dodge something thrown in your general direction. Usually nobody gets hurt, but sometimes you get unlucky and lose the stab lottery. Life goes on.</text></item><item><author>wolverine876</author><text>If you want to take down a fence, first learn why it was built. I can guess at reasons but it would be interesting to hear from a city planner on the reasons and history. My guesses:&lt;p&gt;* The sidewalk is public space. Does the public give away free real estate to the restaurant, to be used to generate revenue by the square foot? If the restaurant wants outdoor dining, they can build it on their own property. Perhaps the city should at least charge rent (in non-pandemic times).&lt;p&gt;* Cities don&amp;#x27;t want loud drunk people on sidewalks, i.e., a bar scene on the sidewalk. Public alcohol consumption is generally banned in most places in the US, afaik.&lt;p&gt;* It obstructs sidewalks, which have an important purpose and were built to a certain capacity. Analogously, should we allow dining in the street, blocking a lane of traffic (structures could be built that would shield patrons from the street). Possibly, there was less foot traffic during the pandemic so the problem wasn&amp;#x27;t as noticeable.&lt;p&gt;* Laws that apply to one person apply to every restaurant in the city. Maybe the temporary pandemic situation limited how many and how did it, and we don&amp;#x27;t want every restaurant building outdoor dining on the sidewalk.&lt;p&gt;The title is inflammatory: Assuming &amp;#x27;progressives&amp;#x27; are bad, caused the issue, the issue is somehow bad. I expect more from the Atlantic than joining the lynch-the-progressives mob.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gunshai</author><text>Sounds like Seattle and Portland :( no longer the cities I once loved.</text></comment>