Riverside officials could move to regulate outdoor dining within the village more stringently, most notably in determining which kinds of physical barriers are permitted for cordoning off dining areas and which are not.
At the village board’s March 5 meeting, Community Development Director Anne Cyran presented staff recommendations for new standards related to outdoor dining, including the barriers, umbrellas, lighting, decorations and service equipment that restaurants use.
The issue will go before the village’s economic development commission and its planning and zoning commission before possibly returning to the board at a future meeting for a vote on implementing an ordinance.
Trustees were widely supportive of most of the new standards — like ensuring umbrellas are anchored properly without obscuring signs and closed outside of business hours, securely fastening decor to the wall or ground to avoid safety hazards, keeping bus carts and other service equipment out of the view of the public right-of-way, and regulating ambient lighting to face downwards to align with the village’s pre-existing lighting standards.
Cyran recommended regulating barriers based on material, height and visual transparency. She said the move to implement standards was not based on complaints the village had received but rather on the suggestion of village board members.
She suggested specifying “durable materials” that will be allowed in the village code, including “finished wood, aluminum, commercial-grade resin, which is plastic, high-grade plastic, and painted or powder-coated steel or iron.” Less durable materials, like chain link fencing or pressure-treated lumber, should be expressly prohibited, she said.
Cyran also recommended limiting barriers, which include those formed by plants within planters, to a height of 42 inches, or three-and-a-half feet, so diners can see out of the space and passers-by can see in.
She said barriers ought to be regulated to have a certain amount of visual transparency, recommending 50% transparency as a benchmark figure that other municipalities enforce or 30% as a more opaque option.
“The code doesn’t currently state that barriers have to have any transparency. If you’ve got a planter where you have space between the plants, that opens up the space, but if you have a solid fence, it does create a little bit of a visual barrier between the dining area and the sidewalk. Generally, good practice is to have a bit of an open area to activate that space,” Cyran said.
The board appeared split on whether to regulate the transparency of barriers and how to handle existing barriers. Village President Doug Pollock threw his voice behind lowering the visual distinction between the streetscape and its outdoor dining areas.
“People gravitate toward those types of areas. They don’t want to sit behind an enclosed fence; it might as well be indoors. The attraction of the outdoor dining is, ‘I get to be part of the street life. I get to enjoy that ambiance,’” he said.
Trustees Alex Gallegos and Elizabeth Kos were vocal in supporting grandfathering in existing barriers so that restaurant owners would not need to spend time and money replacing them. Kos said she felt the optimum opacity of a barrier would depend on the location of the outdoor dining area.
“I love eating outside at La Estancia with that taller fence because there’s a lot going on on that street. There’s a lot happening there,” she said. “Not everybody wants to have a conversation with everybody that goes by, especially in a town like Riverside, where I feel like a lot of people know each other.”
“I would say the experts are the actual restaurant owners. They know their clientele better than we would. They know their industry better than we would,” Gallegos added.
Trustees Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga and Jill Mateo advocated for phasing out existing barriers within five years with new ones that fit the village’s new standards.
“In general, for a street- and public-facing dining area, I do prefer to have some transparency. I think it’s a friendlier look and approach,” Marsh-Ozga said.
“I think uniformity in our central business district — both business districts — would be much nicer than what we have now,” Mateo said.
Trustee Cristin Evans said she could see justifications for making barriers more transparent or allowing them to remain opaque.
The village board will likely have another discussion to reach a group consensus on both points surrounding barriers before any formal action is taken to codify the proposed standards.
