In vino veritas. That’s Latin for, “If you get people talking about the outdoor seating at a wine bar, pretty soon they’ll say how they really feel about COVID patios.” Last week, WW reported on the plight of Living Room Wines, a business that spent $11,000 on a covered wooden deck to replace two parking spaces on North Lombard Street—only to learn that the Portland Bureau of Transportation had wrongly authorized the street seats on what is, in fact, a state highway. PBOT has offered to refund the $1,000 cost of the permit and suggested moving the structure to the sidewalk (“Red Red Tape,” WW, May 14). Responses to the story quickly veered into disdain for the road-drinking phenomenon more generally. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Ronzilla, via Twitter: “PBOT is one of the worst city agencies. They should never have approved something for a road they don’t control. PBOT does this kind of thing all the time; planting trees with no plan to keep them alive, creating barriers that limit access on major streets, etc. They suck.”
Seems2Me, via wweek.com: “Taxpayers cannot trust the word of the staff who are paid to enforce the codes? If they lack the necessary expertise, if taxpayers must hire attorneys in order to have confidence in the codes, let’s shut the code enforcement office down. We need to fire all of the staff taxpayers mistakenly believe are paid the big bucks because of their expertise. (SMH they don’t even know what is city property and what is state property.)”…