Hoboken City Council approves new parklet regulations at contentious meeting

The Hoboken City Council approved new parklet regulations last night at a contentious meeting that showcased that election season is already heating up.

By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View

“The devil’s in the details. It turns out to be a jumbled up mess of words … No cleaning in the winter months. That’s wonderful,” Rosemarie Markle, who preferred the ordinance that was defeated at the prior meeting, said about the proposal up for second reading.

Hoboken Business Alliance (HBA) Board President James Runkle said the organization did a survey that said some want more outdoor dining options. He liked the proposed ordinance.

“By establishing cleaning guidelines … this ordinance makes it easier for businesses to comply with requirements. We believe this ordinance is a positive step forward,” he said of the measure sponsored by 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher and Councilwoman-at-Large Emily Jabbour.

When Mark Willis brought up the significant number of rats coming into the city, Fisher replied that part of the problem is not removing the food sources on the streets.

“Our outdoor dining program has been very successful, there’s still people concerned about eating indoors,” added Jabbour, noting that immunocompromised individuals tend to prefer sitting outside.

She also acknowledged that there was some confusion on the enforcement roles of the health, zoning, and sanitation departments, which has since been addressed.

For example, the Division of Health will perform the inspections, while the zoning officer will check the parklets are in compliance with city codes and regulations.

“I’m still a little concerned and don’t understand how this ordinance will achieve the overall goal of cleanliness … I don’t understand where we are in achieving the overall goal? What metric do we have to let us know it’s actually happening?” 3rd Ward Councilman Mike Russo announced.

Russo, a declared candidate for mayor, and 4th Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos introduced the ordinance that was defeated earlier this month. Jabbour is also in the mayoral race and Ramos and Fisher are expected to jump in any day now.

“How long are we gonna wait?” Fisher asked.

“How long is the city council going to wait before we enact something to change it? Because we’ve been waiting 18, 19 months,” Russo said.

“You guys are so funny with your 19 months references,” Fisher replied, to which Russo said he was getting cutoff and a brief argument between the two ensued.

Once things calmed, Fisher said people won’t be shy about expressing concerns if the ordinance doesn’t have the intended impact in a month.

“In your opinion, you think it allows them to do what I was trying to achieve in the legislation I put forward? I don’t believe that,” Russo pressed forward.

“It says it allows it,” Fisher interjected.

“Please don’t interrupt,” Hoboken Council President Jim Doyle said.

“I disagree with you councilwoman. The reality is we’ve been waiting a long time. We still have the issue and I don’t think this solves the problem,” Russo continued.

“Waiting for what? How are you measuring it?” Fisher answered.

“That’s what I’m asking!” Russo exclaimed.

Russo said the legislation he sponsored wanted parklets cleaned daily, power washed weekly, and the floorboards lifted up on a regular basis.

“You and I had this conversation already. We have all of the same checked provisions. We have the same goal, which is to be able to get underneath it and clean it,” Fisher said.

She said the current ordinance imposes quarterly inspections that, if failed, mandate that outdoor dining closes. Fisher added heavy floorboards being lifted every day was thought by many businesses to be burdensome.

Fisher also argued there had not been many inspections since parklets were established due to departmental jurisdiction confusion, which the ordinance changes.

Russo said he still had no dates proposed to measure progress.

“Three months. We’ll come back in three months,” Fisher replied.

“I appreciate a firm timeline,” Russo stated.

5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen noted the ordinance shuts down parklets that do not pass inspections and do not make the mandated changes within 30 days.

“This will be a major incentive for the parklets that aren’t right to get right,” he noted.

1st Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano said he wasn’t a big fan of imposing fines on the local businesses.

“We don’t know the last time the businesses fixed or updated their parklets. What happens if suddenly they spend … $10,000? I don’t think fining them is the way to do that,” he began.

“We need commitment from the administration. that somebody is going to go out and inspect these. We don’t even know when the last inspection was.”

Ramos compared the situation to asking teenagers to clean their rooms.

“You ever ask them to clean their room as teenagers? They go around the edges … and that’s about it: This is similar. Unless you’re moving things around … we’re not doing much cleaning at all,” he argued. Ramos was also against imposing fines.

Councilman-at-Large Joe Quintero noted the threat of being shut down for not complying will be effective, also stating that outdoor dining parklets are not causing all the rat and parking problems.

“This rat situation has been around for a really long time. Yeah, it got way worse during COVID, it got way worse. Not just here, everywhere!”

He called the ordinance defeated at the last meeting a “draconian fix” and noted that parklets are netting businesses a considerable amount of additional revenue.

“At no point in time did any of us say that this would stop the rat issue. The goal was to remove restaurants from the conversation with regard to total access to cleaning,” Ramos responded.

“We also didn’t talk about parklets because there’s a parking issue,” Russo added.

Ultimately, the ordinance passed 6-2, with Russo and Ramos voting no.