By Donald Wittkowski
Don’t worry, folks. You’ll still be able to have drinks with dinner in Sea Isle City.
City Council took the first step Tuesday toward revising a new law that some feared would have prevented restaurant customers from having a glass of wine, beer or other alcoholic beverages while enjoying a meal outdoors.
By all accounts, al fresco dining has proved immensely popular ever since Sea Isle introduced it in 2008 to liven up the local culinary scene and create a more upscale atmosphere in the downtown district. It allows restaurant customers to have drinks with their meals while seated outdoors at tables overlooking the city’s sidewalks.
However, a new ordinance approved Aug. 14 by City Council banning alcohol consumption on all public property in town had raised concerns that a strict interpretation of the law might extend to the private restaurants offering outdoor dining.
City officials stressed that an alcohol ban for outdoor dining clearly was not the intent of the ordinance. But Council is dropping some language from the law to clear up any ambiguity or confusion.
“Since there are questions about the interpretation, we want to make everything crystal clear,” City Business Administrator George Savastano told the Council members.
Council voted 5-0 to revise the ordinance on first reading Tuesday. A public hearing and final vote are scheduled Sept. 11.
The alcohol ban covers all of Sea Isle’s public buildings and public property, including Excursion Park, the city’s main venue for concerts, shows and festivals.
Previously, an exemption had been carved out allowing nonprofit organizations to serve alcoholic beverages during special events at Excursion Park, but the loophole was closed when Council originally approved the ordinance on Aug. 14.
Savastano said Sea Isle’s newly appointed Police Chief Tom McQuillen has been clamping down on illegal drinking during concerts at Excursion Park as part of a broader strategy to stop public drinking.
“The No. 1 thing the chief has heard about is drinking in public,” Savastano said.
The ordinance defines all of the public areas where drinking is not allowed, including popular spots such as parks, the beaches and the oceanfront Promenade. It also included language that would have banned alcohol at “privately owned properties set aside primarily for public access and use and exposed to public view.”
Those words are now being removed from the ordinance to make it clear that the alcohol ban would not extend to outdoor dining at local restaurants, city officials said.
Outdoor dining has helped to showcase Sea Isle’s culinary scene by drawing more restaurant customers to town. Council President Jack Gibson said sidewalk dining, as it is also known, has been an unqualified success for Sea Isle during the 10 years it has been in existence.
“I think it’s very popular. I think it’s very successful,” Gibson said in an interview. “We have a classy group of restaurants.”
Meanwhile, the language change in the ordinance also clears the way for local bars to continue holding special events in their parking lots that include alcoholic beverages.
There were concerns that if the wording had not been removed, the bars would have been prohibited from serving alcohol during shows and other entertainment staged on their private parking lots. LaCosta Lounge, for instance, converts its parking lot into an entertainment hub for the city’s popular Polar Bear Plunge weekend and the Irish Festival.
“The intention was not to ban those types of events,” Councilwoman Mary Tighe said.
Christopher Glancey, president of the Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization, questioned why language was ever included in the ordinance that grouped private property in with public property for the alcohol ban. He said confusion over the ban “really upset” some people.
“How could you define a public place as private property?” Glancey asked Council.
Jon Batastini, an attorney who was sitting in for City Solicitor Paul Baldini during the Council meeting, tried to assure Glancey that private businesses were never targeted for the alcohol ban.
“The real intention of this ordinance is to stop people from drinking on public property,” Batastini said.
