By Donald Wittkowski
A proposal to extend the dining and drinking hours at Sea Isle City’s outdoor bars and restaurants died Tuesday when a sharply divided City Council could not muster enough votes to introduce the measure.
Proponents wanted to extend the hours from 11 p.m. to midnight to enhance the city’s culinary scene and make the town more inviting for the summer tourists who enjoy leisurely, late-night meals and drinks outdoors.
But when the ordinance to change the hours came up for a vote before Council, it failed from a lack of support. The governing body split 2-2 on the measure, falling short of the majority vote needed to introduce it.
Council members William Kehner and John Divney voted in favor, but Mary Tighe and Jack Gibson dissented. Councilman Frank Edwardi was absent from the meeting, so it was left to four Council members to decide the measure’s fate.
In an interview after the meeting, Kehner raised the possibility of bringing back the ordinance for more discussion and public feedback. Divney, though, said he assumes it is dead.
Divney, who was the ordinance’s chief proponent, has only two more meetings left on Council, making the chances of resurrecting the proposal even more remote. Divney decided not to seek re-election this year and will be replaced by Councilman-elect J.B. Feeley when the governing body reorganizes on July 1.
Gibson, the most outspoken opponent of extending the hours for outdoor dining and drinking, believes the existing 11 p.m. curfew is late enough. He said he does not want the neighbors living next to bars and restaurants exposed to an extra hour of noise.
Tighe said she always thought the ordinance was “more about drinking than the meals.” She repeatedly warned that sidewalk dining could turn into “sidewalk drinking” if bars and restaurants were allowed to serve alcoholic beverages for an extra hour.
Tighe said restaurant and bar patrons will simply be able to move inside those establishments if they want to drink and eat later than 11 p.m. She believes only a small number of customers would want to stay outdoors until midnight anyway.
Hoping to liven up its culinary scene, Sea Isle introduced outdoor dining in 2008 to attract more restaurant customers and create a more upscale ambiance in the downtown district.
Although many in town initially greeted the idea with skepticism and suspicion, especially since it was paired with drinking outdoors, the experiment with sidewalk dining is considered a great success nine years later.
“I fully support sidewalk dining. It has enhanced the town immensely,” Tighe said.
With the peak summer tourism season approaching, city officials and restaurant owners had been discussing ways to make the outdoor dining experience even better for vacationers. The Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization urged Council to extend the hours to midnight.
However, during Tuesday’s Council meeting, no restaurant owners or members of the Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of the ordinance to extend the dining hours. Tighe said the absence of restaurant owners at the meeting suggested there may not have been strong support for the proposal to begin with.
“When something is important to people, they come out,” she said.
As part of a broader package of proposed regulatory changes to make Sea Isle more appealing to tourists, Council has also been discussing the idea of extending the hours for outdoor entertainment at bars and restaurants.
By a 2-1 vote on May 20, Council introduced an ordinance to extend the hours for outdoor music, dancing and entertainment from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Under the proposal, the existing 9 p.m. curfew would remain in effect for all other nights of the week.
Tighe and Edwardi were absent from the May 20 meeting. Gibson voted against the proposed ordinance, while Kehner and Divney supported it. Gibson said he saw no need to allow music to be played later at night, fearing it would only disturb the neighbors.
The measure is scheduled for a public hearing and final vote by Council on June 13. A handful of local residents expressed their opposition to the ordinance on May 20. They urged Council to kill or revise the plan, arguing that they should not have to endure loud music being played late at night.
