Carmel allows some wine tasting rooms to take service back outside after parklets shutdown.

Earlier this spring, the city of Carmel told all wine tasting rooms in the village they had to dismantle their outdoor parklets by July 15. The date was 30 days after Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted Covid-19 restrictions on businesses, a decision made long before the delta variant came on the scene.

With Covid cases rising around the country, more Carmel visitors are demanding to sit outside, tasting room and restaurant owners told the Carmel City Council on Tuesday. Many visitors stopped patronizing indoor tasting rooms altogether.

"I need my outdoor space. My business dropped off when we lost the outdoor space," said Jeffrey Blair, of Blair Estate Tasting Room in Carmel Plaza. "Quite frankly, Covid has busted all of us."

Jack Galante, of Galante Vineyards Tasting Room, estimated he's lost 25-35 percent of his customers who do not feel comfortable indoors since the July 15 shutdown.

Despite the pleas for help from the council, the action it took Tuesday only helped a handful of wine tasting rooms and that's only until Sept. 12.

It turns out that in voting to end wine tasting parklets the council also banned those rooms with private patios from serving outside. There are six such tasting rooms in the village, out of at least 16.

On Tuesday a majority of the council signaled to City Manager Chip Rerig he should use emergency powers enabled at the start of the pandemic to allow rooms with private patios to immediately begin serving outdoors once again until the end of the business day on Sept. 12.

The move does nothing to help 10 other wine tasting rooms with no private outdoor space. Kim Stemler, executive director of the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association, argued all the tasting rooms should be allowed to operate outdoors until at least Dec. 31, the same end date the state is using for allowing dining and consuming alcohol outside of businesses.

Owners argued they should be treated the same as restaurants, which currently get to keep their parklets until Sept. 15. By city code, wine tasting rooms are classified as retail shops, which City Councilmember Karen Ferlito argued makes them ineligible to be considered the same as restaurants. Galante pointed out that unlike retail shops, customers must remove their masks to taste wine.

The council will revisit the issue of parklets at its Sept. 7 meeting, one week from when restaurant parklets constructed during the pandemic will have to be dismantled. Owners are lobbying to keep the parklets until at least November.