Temporary outdoor dining in Saratoga Springs will be allowed through the summer season of 2024 after a city council vote on March 15. The law the council passed was an extension of the pandemic-era law of 2020 that allowed restaurants to move some of their tables onto the sidewalks and into parking lanes of streets. The law has gotten weeks- and months-long extensions a number of times since it was first adopted.
However there is one hitch to the latest iteration: the state’s law that allows alcohol to be served in those outdoor spaces runs out in July. That law must change if the city's new law will be valuable. The legislature is talking about an extension of the state law in Albany.
On Friday March 18, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed revisions to the 2021 outdoor dining law that Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran says may indicate that the governor would be willing to sign an extension of the full law.
Moran said the rationale behind the city's new law stems from the pandemic. Restaurants need to have the outdoor dining option if indoor restrictions return and people may feel more comfortable dining outside.
And time is of the essence. The city will begin to get permit applications from area restaurants, and a law needs to be in place. Also, the city must work with a jersey barrier company to get the cement blocks that guard diners from traffic. That is still being worked out.
Moran has suggested numerous times that extending this law gives restaurant owners a chance to plan and buy equipment without fear that the purchases will be useless in just a few months.
What the law does not have is a way to make sure the spaces are right for Saratoga, Samantha Bosshart the executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation told the city council during a public hearing on the law.
After the vote, which she called “disappointing,” she said, “The Foundation totally supported moving forward with the outdoor dining. The question was if there should be some parameters for review.
“I think it’s somewhat unfair that a business for three years doesn’t have to go through a review process while a business next door, that has a sidewalk cafe, does.”
The temporary outdoor dining permit process does not require the applicant to go before the city's Design Review Commission to have their plans OKed. For sidewalk cafes, which are the permanent, year-round version of outdoor dining, the owners must bring changes or new construction before the DRC.
Bosshart said the same should apply to each application for temporary outdoor seating.
As well, she said a business could buy the outdoor equipment needed, use it for three years only for the city to then say, “Oh no, you can’t have that now.” Conversely, whatever people buy might be worked into the regulations three years from now, just because owners purchased it, she said.
All of this is solved by making the applications go before the DRC, she said.
“It should have been a thoughtful proactive approach,” she said after the vote.
During the meeting, just before the vote, Moran said he is keeping open discussions with the DRC.
“I share the concerns...of the preservation foundation,” he said in an interview March 23. “The look and feel of these outdoor dining areas, should they be a permanent fixture in Saratoga, are important. Saratoga is a brand.”
He said the plan is to give each permit holder a copy of DRC guidelines which include information about materials used in outdoor equipment, colors of the equipment and similar information. Permit holders will be told that “this is what we’ll be working toward eventually.”
The city will informally review how the system works and make changes, eventually coming to a new law by the end of the three year period, he said in an interview March 23.
He was adamant in the interview that he did not want to make each applicant go through design review for a temporary permit.
Bosshart said it would still be possible and that would help establish rules right away.
“The DRC already reviews sidewalk cafes, so I don't really understand why this can’t be implemented now,” she said, adding that the process is simple enough that most applications would be handled by a quick consent agenda vote.
Before the vote that passed unanimously, Mayor Ron Kim said: ”Commissioner, you’ve worked really hard on this. It's quite an effort.” But he added that regulations are needed. “I want to make sure we keep an eye out on this.”