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With Dublin Pride set to kick off this month, Siobhan Comny, owner of Street 66 bar on Parliament Street, said she was “devastated” to learn that Dublin City Council had installed the bike rack directly outside her premises.
The loading bay, one of only two on a street which has 19 restaurants, is used for deliveries and outdoor dining. The bar had reapplied in October for their annual outdoor street furniture license for tables and chairs which was refused on Friday.
“I’m devastated, coming up to Pride the streets are going to be very busy so I don’t think it’s really safe to have a bike rack directly outside your front door of a busy premises,” the pub owner told Independent.ie.
“There is no other place where there are bike racks outside your front door and it’s in a loading bay where there are massive deliveries coming in in the next few weeks.
Dublin LGBTQ bar angered as council put bike rack in former outdoor seating area during Pride month
“When the streets get really really packed for Pride you won’t be able to see the racks.
“Usually during Pride we get a letter from the Garda station and we are told to take anything that is a hazard off the streets for it to be completely clear. Now these bike racks are stuck outside an LGBTQ bar.
“It’s a trip hazard and it doesn’t make sense. I’m very upset about the whole thing,” said Ms Comny.
The online petition, set up on Monday, has reached more than 3,000 signatures calling for Dublin City Council to remove the racks.
The pub had been told on Friday evening that their license for outdoor furniture had been refused, after supplying additional architectural drawings to the council in January.
“We had an outdoor furniture license for the last couple of years and I reapplied as normal in October,” said Ms Comny.
“On Monday morning a bike rack was installed and I have no opportunity to appeal, I’ve no explanation. There are about 26 other bike racks on the street and they are mostly not used because the street doesn’t have much traffic.
“To have them on a loading bay where we have extremely busy deliveries for the next two weeks… the trucks have to park on the footpath.
“It seems a bit vindictive to have a bike rack on a loading bay and delivery trucks have to go up on the footpaths,” she said.
Dublin City council previously removed the bar’s outdoor tables and chairs in January while their reapplication was being processed and placed planters in the loading bay.
“My furniture was removed by Dublin City Council at 7 o’clock in the morning in January. I had already applied for the renewal of the license and I didn’t hear anything,” she said.
“To put a bike rack there instead of even keeping the loading bay there for the delivery drivers, it seems suspicious and a bit weird.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous in the middle of a loading bay,” she said.
The pub owner said the popular bar has received “so much support” from other businesses and local residents to have the racks removed.
Meanwhile, councillor Claire Byrne said “each business has been reapplying for their street furniture license, as everybody has, and have subsequently been refused.”
“Today one of those premises arrived in to see bike parking racks being placed outside their premises where previously they would have had outdoor seating,” she told councillors on Monday.
“I’m obviously very pro-bike parking,” said the Green Party councillor, however, she said there “doesn’t seem to be any coherent plan” around granting street furniture licenses in the city.
Dublin City Council was contacted for comment.
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