Unlike last year, outdoor sidewalk patios won’t be taken down ahead of this winter.

Kamloops council has voted to allow those patios, and the extended sidewalks around them, to stay up through the winter months, all the way until next fall.

Planning and development manager Rod Martin said 22 businesses have set up these patios to expand their seating. That’s up from 13 from 2020 when the program was brand new, set up as a way for restaurants and coffee shops to expand seating with social distancing required during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s one [patio] on Tranquille Road, which is Bright Eye Brewing, and then there are 21 downtown, primarily along Victoria Street with a couple on Third Avenue, and also one on Lansdowne Street,” Martin said.

The city has covered the cost of building sidewalk extensions around those extended patios, through COVID-19 Safe Restart funding provided by the B.C. government. Martin said the cost for that has been $197,000.

The cost for the city to do winter maintenance of the extended sidewalks is expected to be up to $8,000, which will also be paid for with the COVID-19 restart money. Businesses in front of those extended sidewalks are responsible for clearing snow and ice during the winter.

As well, 43 parking stalls have been displaced downtown, according to the city, with a cost of up to $15,000 per month in lost parking revenue.

The Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association surveyed 23 downtown businesses that don’t have the extended patios about their thoughts on the program. Of those, 60.9 per cent said the loss of parking discouraged some patrons from coming downtown, but 82.6 per cent of them said the patios enhanced the downtown and 73.9 per cent said they would like to keep the patios year-round.