Few Changes Coming to Sidewalk Cafe Ordinance

Careful not to disrupt a bustling downtown or hurt business owners, city council, sitting as the public services and infrastructure committee, asked city staff for only mild adjustments to sidewalk café regulations in St. Pete.

Area of concern include outdoor amplified noise, height and size of out door cafes, number of signs, the use of public right-of-way and the sidewalks being overcrowded.

“People figure out how to navigate things,” council member Steve Kornell said. “Friday night and Saturday, I mean we want people on the sidewalks.

“I don’t know how a business owner would regulate that,” Kornell said of an overcrowded sidewalk. “They would yell and have to go out there and be nasty to the patrons. I don’t want to restrict success. I think that takes some thought process on how we do that. I want what we do to be enforceable. I don’t’ want to restrict young people from downtown.”

Council said having too many people on the sidewalk is something that needs to be monitored but is a good problem to have because it means downtown is staying busy.

“Go as much as the status quo as we can,” said council member Bill Dudley of what staff should do with the sidewalk café ordinance.

“I think we ought to do a minimum,” Dudley added. “Looks like (sidewalk cafes) are working.”

Following two “lightly attended” workshops on sidewalk cafes, city staff made a presentation about potential changes to the ordinance at a May 9 city council committee meeting.

Philip Lazzara, with the city’s planning and economic development department, said he would bring back the ordinance to committee before the development review commission will review it.

A previous discussion by council on sidewalk cafes centered on noise some of the cafes generate.

Council member Karl Nurse said the city’s ordinance needs to find the “sweet spot” for noise levels of sidewalk cafes.

“We need to find ways to allow people to listen to music outside but sleep as well,” Nurse said.

“Most people are ok with some ambient background noise,” Lazzara said “We can crate some standards with the city attorney’s office; standards for ambient level and hours of operation where it is not occurring after a certain time.”

Lazzara said another issue that has come up has been bars and restaurants serving alcohol outside of the establishment on the sidewalk.

That, he said, is currently against code and is a problem police have issues with.

Council member Jim Kennedy wondered if allowing outdoor alcohol service or open containers in certain areas would work.

Kenned asked if, ”allowance for an open containers within a certain area, how that could potentially fit in to an exception (of the ordinance).”

Staff said it is something they can look into but that is an activity police would advice against. 

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