Village Board considers allowing outdoor café seating on the square
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Village Board discussed the idea of allowing businesses on the village square to use sidewalk space for café seating and dining at Monday night’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
In a move to become more “business friendly” to the restaurants on the square, the board had requested information about how to allow outdoor seating and dining. Deputy Clerk Lorri Alexander presented the board with the information she and staff had gathered at Monday night’s meeting.
Alexander told the board other communities that allow outdoor seating all do it a little bit differently, so the board had some options as to how to go about instituting policy for the change, but that there were things they would need to be aware of.
“There are some very specific regulations with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but we do have some options we could offer the businesses in the village,” she said.
Police Chief Alan Boyes said he didn’t have an issue with the idea and offered a couple of suggestions, saying he thought there needed to be some type of delineation of the outside area involved and he would like to see a server assigned to the area.
“It could be as simple as a plastic chain marking it off,” Boyes said.
Village Board President Scott Seager asked audience member Jim Rohrer, one of the restaurant owners on the square, if he would be interested in outdoor seating for his coffee shop/café.
At first Rohrer was reluctant to comment, but then said his concern was staff costs if it was required to have a server just for the outside area.
Seager said Boyes’ suggestion was just that, a suggestion and the board was looking to make the process as simple as possible. Seager again asked Rohrer if he would be interested in providing outdoor seating if the process wasn’t too cumbersome and Rohrer said he was very interested.
“I think it’s a great opportunity, provided it’s done in a way that makes sense,” Seager said.
Trustee Matt Johnson said he didn’t want to over complicate matters either and that he thought the village could institute a policy change with about three to five requirements to start with.
“Let’s see what happens,” he said.
Seager agreed he wanted the village to “start slow” with the process with either a simple ordinance change or, if possible, just a policy change.
Alexander told the board they would have to made some decisions as to how much sidewalk space would need to be left clear for pedestrian traffic, and that while 3 feet was the minimum legal limit, 5 feet was what most communities required. She said the sidewalk widths varied on the square from 11 to 15 feet, so some businesses would have more space to work with than others.
The board briefly discussed the possibility of adding sidewalk space on the square by taking some room from the deep, diagonal parking spaces on the outside of the square, but acknowledged that was a project for the future, if the downtown businesses were looking for more space out front.
Trustee Ann Zess mentioned the possibility of planting more trees on the sidewalks, to provide shade and as part of a downtown beautification process, something the board has discussed in the past. She said it was probably discussion for another time, but wanted to remind the board it was something they had considered.
The board instructed Alexander to present a list of what specifics they needed to vote on to move the process forward at a future meeting.
