photo credit: Marc Albert/KRCB
Sebastopol's Crow Bar remains open for outdoor dining.

There's a lot less outdoor seating in Sebastopol.
They may have taken weeks for permits and days of construction, but the end came swiftly Wednesday morning.

Sebastopol resident Tucker Hemquist said he watched it all go down.

"It was a quick and dirty job, from what we've heard, Caltrans kind of forced the hand on it, they said they wanted all the parklets torn down," Hemquist said, mentioning wooden booths built in parking spots in front of Retrograde Coffee and Sebastopol Sunshine Cafe on South Main Street, which happens to also be state highway 116.

Their removal was based on safety concerns.

Hemquist, who parked his pickup where the booth stood only hours earlier, says they'll be missed.

"It brings kind of that European vibe to the coffee, café, restaurant atmosphere, and I think it was one of the good benefits of COVID is getting people out on the street-sides," Hemquist said.

He said all traces were gone in a matter of hours.

Jennifer McClendon shared Hemquist's sentiment.

"Especially when its nice and warm outside to be able to take your coffee or snacks and eat outside, it just creates more of a community atmosphere , I think it's a shame they went away," McClendon said.

Daniele Strawn shared her laments, saying they were perhaps the only upside of COVID.

"Parklets? Is what they were called? I think they were super nice to have and it was one of those things that popped up because of like pandemic restrictions, it was kind of one of those things like, 'why do we not have more space for people to be outside, conversing, sitting down, enjoying each other and especially like right outside of these nice coffee shops," Strawn said.

Although Sebastopol tried resisting, ultimately, on state highways, Caltrans calls the shots.

For Lindsay Fitzgerald, the whole issue is illustrative of systems too complex to properly function.

"In the United States there's so much red tape around everything, bureaucracy is not a productive process of decision-making and that there should be less legislation about social decisions and more human-ness."