BALTIMORE — Early Tuesday morning, another Federal Hill restaurants' parklet was destroyed by a car.
Video captured from across the street shows a car plowing into Blue Agave's outdoor seating at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday.
"It could happen to anyone I guess," said Sami Tabet.
Tabet owns Byblos Restaurant across the street. He has his own parklet and would like to see more of an effort to slow traffic down after hours so this doesn’t happen again.
"When it comes to speed is when there is no traffic," said Tabet.
Like when this crash happened... 4:30 a.m.
Baltimore Police said the driver left the car at the scene and ran off. Police searched the area but they were no where to be found so they had the 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt towed.
About a month ago, a similar search in this neighborhood after SoBo Café’s parklet was destroyed by a car. In that incident, the suspect drove off, and all SoBo Café could say today was that a suspect has been identified.
"We’re very concerned about safety across the board," said Cathy Rosenbaum, the executive director of Federal Hill Main Street. "We want to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that diners, residents shoppers everyone is safe."
She said they are already looking to see what they can do differently to make these parklets more safe.
"Concrete barriers instead of water filled barriers. It could be traffic flow changes. It could be putting more on the sidewalk. I mean there’s lots of different ways to do it and that’s why it’s so important that we are working with multiple city agencies at the same time to really come to an agreement and make it happen," said Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum said they already have some funding so changes should be able to happen pretty quickly… at a time when these restaurants are relying on outdoor space because of the increased social distancing restrictions.
"It’s been a lifeline for many of our restaurants," said Rosenbaum.
"During this time, if we don’t have it, it would be a big struggle," said Tabet.
Rosenbaum said Blue Agave had all the proper permitting. Restaurant management did not want to comment.
If you have any information about this incident, call Baltimore Police.
