(Above) Outdoor dining close to State Street at Tortoise Club in River North.

11-May-15 – Sidewalk cafés in Chicago would have to be more careful about where their café ends and the public sidewalk begins if an ordinance introduced by 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly is approved.

The ordinance, introduced last Wednesday, would allow the city to close a sidewalk café, at least temporarily, if the business collects three notices of violation pertaining to public safety.

Examples given in the proposed ordinance include the café being too close to the public sidewalk, a missing barrier between the sidewalk and café, or serving trays in the public way.

If closed, the café would have to remove everything from the sidewalk and show the city the issue has been fixed and will not happen again.

Once outlawed in Chicago, except for Daley Plaza and a pedestrian mall on State Street, sidewalk cafés started appearing downtown in the early 1980s and since then, hundreds of permits have been issued. Sidewalk café licenses are good from March 1 to December 1 and must be renewed every year.

Reilly also introduced an ordinance that would require restaurants near residential areas to get permission from the city to close later than 1 a.m. or open earlier than 5 a.m. When applying for permission, the restaurant would have to show a plan to minimize “noise and disturbances.”

Both ordinances were referred to the City Council’s Committee on License and Consumer Protection.