In an unusual moment for Santa Barbara City Hall, six outdoor dining appeals are headed to the City Council on Tuesday.

The restaurants that were cited for violating parklet rules will ask the council to overturn staff’s decision in separate appeals.

The restaurants that are seeking dispensation are Ca’Dario, 37 E. Victoria St.; Taza, 413 State St.; Courthouse Tavern, 129 E. Anapamu St.; Folded Hills Winery, 1294 Coast Village Road; Trattoria Vittoria, 30 E. Victoria St.; and Foxtail Kitchen & Bar, 14 E. Cota St.

“They are people who have been noticed four times to fix their ADA problems,” said Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse. “They haven’t been completely fixed so they were tagged for removal.”

Six individual appeals is a first for City Hall. It’s unclear how long the process will take and the level of complication for the discussion.

The businesses were noticed four times, including two administrative citations, with an order to remove the parklets by April 24.

Each of the businesses filed appeals to the City Council asking to keep their parklets.

Ca’Dario, in a letter from law firm Fauver Large Archbald & Spray, told the city that they weren’t noticed properly and that they had remedied the situation.

“As of April 19, 2023, Ca’Dario has corrected all violations, and is in compliance with the applicable parklet regulations but, despite this, Public Works has refused to issue a re-inspection and lift the removal order,” the firm states in its appeal letter.

The flurry of appeals is the latest flare-up over outdoor dining in downtown Santa Barbara.

A debate has ensued over the future of the parklets and whether it’s in Santa Barbara’s long-term best interest to continue outdoor dining.

Last month, after several meetings, the city decided to charge restaurants $2 a square foot for outdoor dining spaces.

The city moved swiftly to allow outdoor dining shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, but Rowse has said that restaurants are benefitting from subsidized outdoor dining and other businesses, such as retail, aren’t seeing the same advantage.

With these appeals, the city sent the restaurants notices of violations last year, and then followed up with citations and orders to remove the parklets.

“By the time I was informed of our ADA handicap table not being up to code I decided to order one,” wrote Billy Valdez, in a letter to the city. “Unfortunately, the table we ordered was slightly not up to code due to the hinges infringing under the table.

“So again, we ordered another table. The table took longer than expected, but we now have an ADA-approved table on our parklet. We have been in communication with city staff to keep them updated of our efforts.”

Valdez also wrote of a challenging personal story with the parklets.

“During this time, our principle, Jack Mathis, was diagnosed with throat cancer, a stroke, brain aneurism and been in the hospital for three months,” Valdez wrote. “All emails go to Jack Mathis. We ask please that we are not required to take down our parklet as it cost us $10,000 and it will be $2,000 to remove.”

The council meeting begins at 2 p.m. at City Hall, 735 Anacapa St.