City, facing bar litter, enforces fences
Some worry new rule will hurt business
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| JOHN SWISTAK JR. PHOTO Luana Paulk and Clarence Price, both of Collinsville, maneuver around seating outside Friday's South on Main Street in Collinsville on Tuesday. Some restaurant owners are worried a new city rule requiring fencing around sidewalk eating areas will hurt business. |
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The city has revised its permits to require owners to clearly mark outdoor dining areas and erect barriers to limit access to sidewalks, said city Community Development Director Paul Mann.
"They have to keep everything contained in there," he said.The change, city officials said, is tied in part to the state's ban on smoking in almost all public places, including bars and restaurants, that started in January. The rule change has turned alleyways, front stoops and doorways into impromptu smoking lounges.
Melissa Leavy, the city's coordinator for its downtown area, said some smokers are also toting their drinks outside, presenting issues with the city's open container law. Litter has also become an issue, and Leavy has heard worries from neighbors, she said.
"Beer bottles are a continuous complaint," she said. "They're pooling outside the restaurants."
The issue also involves restaurants with sidewalk dining, where some have also been walking off with drinks, she said.
Mann said the new permits require restaurants to have some type of fence separating the dining space and the sidewalk, which the city hopes will corral diners in. Similar fences are in place at many restaurants in cities with outdoor dining, including Belleville, Edwardsville and Clayton, Mo.
The Collinsville rule does not affect patio dining or drinking during festivals, which requires another permit.
Leavy said the city also plans to create special cups with the city logo that it will sell to restaurants. She said eateries could use those instead of breakable glass.
"We'd like to see the cups instead of the beer bottles," she said.
Outdoor dining has been a major push by the city to help revive its ailing downtown, which has numerous empty storefronts. Downtown living is also a major priority in the city's master plan released earlier this summer.
The city last year rewrote ordinances that banned liquor outside. The rules now limit business hours and stipulate what areas the dining can take up.
So far, two restaurants in Downtown Collinsville have outdoor dining, both on the same block: Friday's South at 106 E. Main St. and Fifth Quarter Bar and Grill at 118 E. Main St. Both eateries have small, umbrella-topped tables that hug the exterior of the buildings and, as of this week, had no fences.
Eric Kent opened Friday's South in January 2007 and urged the city to relax rules on outdoor dining. His was the first to offer sidewalk dining when the ordinance was passed last year.
Kent said he understands the city's concerns about beer bottles - he sometimes finds a few early in the morning stacked in front of Friday's. (He says the remnants are often brands Friday's does not sell, which leads him to believe the beers are being transported from other nearby bars.)
Still, Kent said, the fence rule is overkill, especially since Friday's isn't the problem. He hires a extra help on weekends and already puts drinks in plastic cups.
"We comply with every ordinance they have," he said. "There's some things you can't control."
Kent said he's concerned the barriers will limit space and force him to reduce the number of tables, harming business. The city already requires four feet of room for pedestrians and the fences will further restrict that space, an area that lots of customers tell him draws them in, he said.
"It just doesn't make sense," he said.
Further east, Fifth Quarter owner Roger Schuerbaum said the fencing would probably improve the look of Main Street, but questioned whether outdoor eateries were causing the beer bottle problem in the first place.
"I keep pretty good tabs on people going outside my bar," he said.
Schuerbaum said it's the second time the city has changed rules on outdoor dining since he opened a month ago. Earlier, it was an issue over the size of tables. The revisions, he said, are costing him money to keep up.
"It's just another expense," he said. "It's something that should have been brought to my attention earlier."
Kent said he's worried the fences will make Downtown Collinsville's nascent outdoor dining less attractive to developers and restaurant owners.
"I think they'll look on Main Street and see the restrictions and say never mind," Kent said.
Leavy, meanwhile, said the city wants to take care of the issue before it becomes a problem.
"We're trying to address it and be proactive," she said, adding later, "The only way a beer should be brought outside is when a server brings it."
