Opening a restaurant in Los Angeles has long meant navigating a maze of city departments just to get a patio approved, and Mayor Karen Bass signed a new executive directive this week aimed at clearing that path. The order, Executive Directive No. 24, is designed to streamline restaurant permitting and support small businesses across the city, with provisions touching everything from outdoor dining to alcohol rules and workforce pipelines.
What the Directive Sets in Motion
According to mynewsla.com, the directive is intended to make it easier to open, operate and grow restaurants in the city. Among its proposed measures is a self-certification program for al fresco dining, which would let eligible restaurants sign off on their own outdoor-dining setups rather than waiting on city reviewers. The order also calls for regular, multilingual, in-person office hours at City BusinessSource Centers, giving restaurant owners a dedicated place to get help navigating permits.
The directive further directs city departments to identify potential funding for a restaurant grant program that could cover costs such as rent, payroll, utilities, operating expenses and permit fees, per the same outlet. It also proposes making previously approved outdoor dining plans available as templates for other restaurants, with the original owners' consent, and explores standardized outdoor-dining plans for eligible locations as a way to simplify approvals. The order additionally aims to improve coordination between street repaving projects and restaurants with existing outdoor dining areas.
Zoning, Alcohol Rules and Job Pipelines Also in Scope
Beyond permitting logistics, the directive calls for a review of zoning and alcohol-permitting rules that can make it harder for restaurants to expand, and it explores simpler restaurant approval processes more broadly. It also connects Los Angeles Community College District culinary arts graduates with restaurant industry jobs through city WorkSource Centers, linking the hospitality workforce pipeline directly to city employment services.
“Small businesses are the backbone of our local economy,” Bass said, according to mynewsla.com, adding that investment in them builds a stronger city. The mayor also said successful restaurants benefit neighborhoods by creating jobs, supporting families and bringing people together. The mayor's office released information about the directive on Thursday.
Entertainment Zones Could Allow Outdoor Drinking at Events
One of the directive's more notable pieces is a framework for entertainment zones that could allow outdoor alcohol consumption during designated events, with the stated goal of bringing more activity and customers to neighborhood businesses. That effort runs alongside a separate Los Angeles City Council vote Wednesday, in which the council voted 12-0 to direct city departments to study the feasibility of establishing entertainment zones downtown, as reported by dailynews.com. City staff are expected to analyze the relevant state law and evaluate potential implementation requirements and safeguards before any zone becomes reality.
Other California cities have already tested the concept. Santa Monica passed an ordinance in June 2025 creating an entertainment zone for the Third Street Promenade, allowing patrons to carry alcoholic drinks bought from approved restaurants within a three-block stretch from Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with extended hours during special events, the Daily News reported. San Francisco has its own versions, including the Castro Entertainment Zone and Cole Valley Entertainment Zone.
A Permitting Process Restaurants Have Called Fragmented
The push to simplify permitting builds on a system that outdoor-dining advocates have long criticized as cumbersome. Under the permanent al fresco program, businesses must contact the city's Building and Safety Department, the Transportation Department, and the Health Department separately rather than working through one centralized office, according to LAist. Restaurant advocates have said that process can involve as many as four engineers assigned to a single project.
That complexity has had real consequences for individual businesses. Park's BBQ, for instance, initially considered removing its patio because the required permits were costly and time-consuming, LAist reported, though the restaurant ultimately kept it open after the city extended its permitting deadline. The stakes around outdoor dining remain high for LA's restaurant scene: since the city launched its Al Fresco program in 2020, it had granted 1,600 sidewalk dining permits, with 154 restaurants using portions of the street for dining as of September 2021, according to Bisnow. Restaurant owners and operators have described the program as a lifeline during the industry's pandemic-era recovery.
Fees have also been a sticking point. Bisnow reported that the tentative fee structure for on-street dining required applicants to pay either $1,200 or $1,500 for an application review, with additional charges tied to how many parking spaces a restaurant's setup removes from public use — fees that could reach as much as $9,000 for frequently used parking areas. Whether Bass's new directive will change those costs has not been detailed in materials released so far.
