Patios Will Be On The Move If Restaurant Owners
Decide To Open Them At All

The long patio debate at the council table is over. On Monday, June 28th, Council voted 5-4 in favour of moving the patios from the building fronts to the curbside.

The vote has remained the same despite increased public pressure from both citizens and restaurant owners to allow the patios to remain adjacent to the building fronts. Councilor Mike Edwards made one last attempt to block the move on June 28th but was unsuccessful.

Previously, on Monday, April 19th, Collingwood Council had voted down a motion that would have deferred any change in the location of the restaurant patios until 2011, meaning patios must now be situated curbside in downtown Collingwood. A vote on the motion had been delayed for a number of weeks until all members of Collingwood Council could be in attendance.

Councillor Ian Chadwick had put forward the motion to defer the change in location until 2011 to allow for further discussion with the restaurant owners and town officials. Now that the motion has been defeated, Chadwick was concerned that many of the downtown patios will simply disappear. He said that he was disappointed that council had chosen to move forward with moving the patios to the curbside despite hearing views from restaurant owners who wanted to keep the patios adjacent to their buildings.

Restaurant owners have expressed concern about increased costs that will result in moving the patios away from the buildings. They are also concerned about potential safety issues as their servers will now have to carry food and drinks, often piping hot items, across the sidewalk and through pedestrian traffic. Councillor Kathy Jeffery voted to defeat the motion. Jeffery said at the time that the restaurant owners who are presently not in favour of curbside patios will "come around."

Many restaurant patio operators have said that they will close their patios rather than move them once the bylaw becomes law on July 5, 2010.

It is interesting to note that the city of Guelph had also considered moving downtown patios to the curbside but instead voted to leave downtown patios adjacent to the buildings.