Warren works to get restaurants ready for outdoor dining start

With Rhode Island restaurants set to re-open to limited outdoor dining Monday, May 18, Warren officials are working to make sure that the town’s eateries are able to take as much advantage of the loosened restrictions as possible, as soon as possible.

Warren Town Council members on Tuesday extended the town’s State of Emergency through the second week of June, granting president Keri Cronin the power to update the document as needed to reflect ongoing changes in state guidelines. That would free up the town’s planner, building official and others to work with business owners quickly to approve restaurants’ plans and help them when possible.

Though the state outdoor dining policy spells out many of the rules by which restaurants must live, it leaves a lot up to the town, and Ms. Cronin said “we are going to try to be as creative as possible” in giving restaurants the permissions they need to start serving.

In many cases, that involves easing zoning restrictions and granting the temporary right to serve in new ways - for instance, Rod’s Grille has asked for town permission to serve outdoors, in its rear parking lot.

“We should do everything we can to expedite businesses’ reopening,” councilor Brandt Heckert said. “I feel comfortable giving the president the authority (to modify the local State of Emergency) and giving responsibility for details to our planner and our building official, knowing that this isn’t permanent and we will have the ability to make changes going forward.”

Warren restaurant owners and town officials had been expecting the eased restrictions, and for several weeks the town’s administration and council members have been discussing whether they could temporarily ease town regulations on outdoor dining to help restaurant owners get as much as possible out of the change in state policy.

There are dozens of restaurants in town that allow limited outdoor dining, from the Coffee Depot on Main Street to Bywater at the corner of Water and State streets. Still, many do not. Mr. Rulli said the town’s restaurants can be broken into several relevant groups, and each will likely require a different discussion:

First are restaurants that have parking lots and could possibly use them for outdoor dining. Mr. Rulli said that as the town moves to temporarily relax zoning restrictions, there will need to be some rules in place to keep dining areas separated from parking areas, and establish buffers and allow safety from cars.

At restaurants like Bywater, which has both a parking lot and a small area of outdoor seating, outdoor service could possibly be expanded into the parking area, he said, and indeed, that restaurant’s owners reached out to town officials about a week ago to ask about their options.

At places like La Piñata and Uptown Food and Spirits on Main Street, which already have enclosed patios but limited parking, the challenge will be maximizing the dining space while still adhering to the state regulations, which require large spaces between tables.

And at restaurants that front sidewalks, the challenge will be how to allow limited dining there while ensuring that the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is adhered to.

One issue that will likely come into play is access to restroom facilities, Mr. Rulli said.

“That’s a huge one,” Ms. Cronin added. “Huge.” At this point, though, there are still a lot of questions as to how restroom facilities are going to be handled when the time comes for restaurants to reopen.