‘Barely making any money’: Downtown restaurant considers patio closure with new city fees

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack says the city is charging restaurants a fee for patios this year to make up for revenue shortfall.

A downtown restaurant is contesting a new city policy that charges restaurants and bars a fee for patios in certain public spaces.

Rocky Mountain Icehouse says the policy may spell the end of its outdoor summer seating along Jasper Avenue, as well as freeze its winter patio in its tracks.

Under new patio program fees that began this month, the City of Edmonton charges hospitality providers $3,700 a year for a seasonal sidewalk patio. It costs $6,900 for a year-round permit.

The longevity of the summer-season patio at Icehouse will depend on the restaurant’s success this summer, but co-owners Wayne Jones and Susan Forscy say they already know the numbers won’t add up for their winter patio.

Jones says their restaurant incurred debt coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic but was encouraged to bring vibrancy back to the streets of downtown and opened their patio year-round as part of a city pilot project. The new fees, he said, feel like a “bait-and-switch.”

“We invest a lot of money, and a lot of time, into something we think is a betterment for the City of Edmonton and the downtown core, and they turn around and put this huge fee on it, which is completely unreasonable,” Jones told CTV News Edmonton Friday.

Forscy said the patio fees are not conducive to keeping independent business owners in the inner city.

“It’s devastating to us as business owners, because we love the downtown core,” she said.

“With the increase in the property taxes as well as the patio … we’re barely making any money.”

Mayor Andrew Knack says money that previously covered these patio fees came from automated traffic enforcement, which the city is looking to reinstate. The city still subsidizes 50-per-cent of the cost, he said.

Downtown Edmonton’s patio program started in 2020 during the pandemic at no cost to businesses. After operating budget adjustments years later, it moved to a shared-investment model that would see split costs applying to any business’s patio where furnishings aren’t removed each day.

“There is a cost to creating the patios that extend into the road’s right-of-way. To be clear, there are free patio options. So businesses can set up a free patio depending on how much space they’re willing to use,” he said Friday.

Knack now wants to re-open conversations about the province’s photo radar policy to free up more money and patio space in the city.

CTV News Edmonton has reached out to the province for comment.

Ward O-Day’min Coun. Anne Stevenson said eight restaurants so far have opted not to proceed with summer patios so far, meaning the city would be keeping an eye on the rate of licence renewals next summer.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg