By Donald Wittkowski
Sidewalk café-style dining has become a popular summer attraction in Sea Isle City, but a proposal to extend the nighttime hours for eating outdoors is not leaving a good taste in everyone’s mouth.
City officials are considering whether to change the regulations for outdoor dining to allow restaurants to tack on another hour – from the existing curfew of 11 p.m. to midnight.
The issue came up Tuesday during a City Council meeting, generating intense debate and also raising concerns that an extension of sidewalk dining might also lead to more liberal hours for drinking alcohol outdoors.
“I just don’t want to see it turned into sidewalk drinking,” Councilwoman Mary Tighe said.
Council members seemed to agree that they don’t want to extend the hours for allowing bars and restaurants to serve alcohol outdoors beyond the existing 11 p.m. curfew.
However, City Business Administrator George Savastano warned that an extension of the sidewalk dining hours might have the “unintended consequences” of allowing people to drink outside later.
Under the current regulations, restaurant patrons may consume alcoholic beverages while dining outdoors until 11 p.m. Savastano questioned whether drinking would be allowed outdoors until midnight if the eating hours were extended until then.
“When you draft an ordinance, sometimes there are unintended consequences,” he told Council.
Council intends to have its solicitor draft changes to the outdoor dining regulations that will be considered later on by the five-member governing body. Councilman Jack Gibson said he wants to move cautiously on the issue to allow plenty of time for debate and deliberations.
Councilman Frank Edwardi announced at Tuesday’s meeting that he had already made up his mind. He said he was opposed to longer hours for sidewalk dining, arguing that 11 p.m. is late enough.
Gibson indicated he would probably support extending the hours to midnight, but only for holidays and weekends.
Councilman John Divney, who is spearheading possible changes to the outdoor dining regulations, wants to have them ready for the start of the summer tourism season in June.
Gibson, though, asserted that Council should not rush to make changes.
“I think being more deliberative is more important than missing part of June,” Gibson said.
John Henry, a Sea Isle resident for 12 years, also urged Council not to feel pressured into making a decision by the summer.
“There’s no reason why we have to push this for June 1st, July 1st, or August 1st. Let’s discuss it,” Henry said.
Introduced in 2008, sidewalk dining has been a big hit among summer tourists and has brought more business to local restaurants. Divney credited outdoor dining with creating a more upscale ambiance for Sea Isle’s culinary scene and erasing the city’s image as “a bar town.”
“We’ve been successful. We just want to see if we can maintain our success and improve it,” he said.
Divney discussed proposed changes to the outdoor dining regulations with local restaurant owners during a Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization meeting last week. On Tuesday, he brought those suggestions to Council.
Restaurant owners are seeking an extension for sidewalk dining hours from 11 p.m. to midnight, but they have made no mention of wanting longer hours for outdoor alcohol sales, said Christopher Glancey, Chamber of Commerce president.
The restaurant industry also wants the city to end the requirement that all tables and chairs must be removed from the outdoor dining areas after 11 p.m.
Currently, tables and chairs must be taken inside at the end of the night and then brought back outside the next day – a cumbersome and time-consuming process, the restaurant owners said.
As part of the draft changes in the dining regulations, Council will consider the request to allow tables and chairs to stay out all night. Another proposal is whether restaurants should be allowed to have permanent overhead structures, such as awnings, for the sidewalk dining areas.
Mike Monichetti, owner of Mike’s Seafood, a Sea Isle restaurant that does not have outdoor dining, told Council that fixed awnings could impede access on the public sidewalks for people who have disabilities or families with baby strollers. He does not want the regulations changed to allow awnings.
“I’m a believer that if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Monichetti said.
A final proposal that will be considered by Council is whether to extend the hours for outdoor bands at bars and restaurants from the current curfew of 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Gibson has already called that idea “a mistake.”
