As a new wave of winter weather washes over Edmonton, and it\u2019s days like today that make you yearn for sunshine and patio season.<\/p>\n
But one downtown business owner fears there will be fewer patio options this summer because of new city fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always thought it was a little bit early when we closed the patio, and a little bit late when we opened them, and we thought, why not do them all year round?\u201d said Wayne Jones, the owner of Rocky Mountain Icehouse on Jasper Avenue.<\/p>\n
Jones has hosted a pet-friendly year-round patio for the past seven years. It covers up the sidewalk and potential parking spaces, making room for tables and chairs in all seasons.<\/p>\n
Jones paid to build the patio, but has paid nothing to the city to host the sidewalk patio until now. New rules mean starting this spring, he will face a nearly $7,000 bill every year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt basically puts a patio to be unaffordable. If the City thinks that we\u2019re making a ton of profit off of a patio, then they\u2019re mistaken,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n
The city-wide change would also impact Whyte Ave businesses. With the costs for smaller, temporary patios are about $500, while larger year-round ones are $6,900.<\/p>\n
The Edmonton Downtown Business Association is pushing back in a letter, saying patios are essential to the core\u2019s vibrancy, safety, and economic growth, calling for a pause and another look at the changes that could wipe out patios altogether.<\/p>\n
But Edmonton\u2019s mayor says patios are subsidized by taxpayers, and the fee change puts half of those costs back on the businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a vibrancy benefit, but there\u2019s also a taxation conversation, and people are understandably concerned about how much taxes are going up, so for the short-term, this was an imperfect solution to try to minimize how much taxes continue to go up, and they\u2019re already going up a significant amount in 2026,\u201d said Mayor Andrew Knack.<\/p>\n
As for Jones, he\u2019s still excited for the rush of patio hoppers to come back when the warmer weather does, but says the news does dampen the mood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe patios are a very important part of a city\u2019s culture, and to see people out of the streets and enjoying Edmonton\u2019s diverse climate is very important to us,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n
The new patio fees take effect on April 1st.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a new wave of winter weather washes over Edmonton, and it\u2019s days like today that make you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-484051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}