But, if they have any money, they can always go to one of the parks’ new year-round concession stands and buy a latte or snack.

Allowing evening concerts and permanent food vendors are just two of the proposed rule changes that the Seattle Parks Department put on the table last week to liven up the city’s 10 downtown parks as part of Mayor Nickels’ Center City Parks Initiative.

Pioneer Square’s Occidental is among several dowtown parks that could host permanent cafés and regular nighttime events under new guidelines proposed by Seattle Parks and Recreation. Photo by Adam Hyla.

Parks that would be affected by the proposed rule changes, which will be presented at a Board of Park Commissioners meeting April 12, include Freeway, Occidental, and the Pike Place Market’s Victor Steinbrueck Park.

Last year, a task force appointed by the mayor to look at the downtown parks recommended a number of ways to draw more visitors and make the parks feel safer, such as adding more events and creating a new team of park rangers to patrol the parks — an idea the City Council shot down in last fall’s budget process.

Parks planner Victor Schoenberg says that the proposed rule changes are aimed at making it easier to use the parks and book events by streamlining rules that currently vary by location. For instance, while biking, skating, and skateboarding aren’t allowed in most downtown parks, only Freeway Park prohibits using a Frisbee.

Under the new rules, which Parks spokesperson Dewey Potter says will get a public hearing before any changes are made, park-goers could play Frisbee at Freeway Park, but lose the right to skateboard at Pioneer Square’s Occidental Park.

For the first time, Occidental and all the downtown parks could have multiple special events per month, permanent cafés and food stands, and nighttime concerts, subject to the city’s noise ordinance and a proposed new rule calling for a 15-minute break every 90 minutes.

A three-hour limit would still apply to amplified entertainment, but not to political speech or rallies, which Schoenberg says are covered by the First Amendment.

“There’s been lots of resistance to anything commercial in parks,” Potter says. But, “As the task force did its work, one of its thoughts was that downtown parks are different than neighborhood parks and need to be a little more active to keep people interested in coming back.”

The proposed changes stand to have the greatest impact on Occidental, which lost 17 trees last year in a Parks remodel that community members are still contesting in court. In place of the park’s former pergola, the Parks Department plans to build a café or kiosk that, under current park rules, the Pioneer Square Community Association has a say over.

Under the proposed rules, that’s no longer the case, but Schoenberg says the Parks Department would continue consulting the association, along with the Pioneer Square Historic Preservation Board.

“Mostly what we’re doing is removing controls,” Schoenberg says. “Our goal is to get things going in the parks so it feels safe for everybody.”