Credit: Courtesy Kerry McCormack
Last night, Lakewood City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that eases the way for restaurants to expand outdoor dining into parking lots, public rights of way and some on-street parking in an effort to boost business in the age of social distancing.

“This resolution, among other things, will relax the requirements and regulations for restaurants seeking conditional use permits for outdoor dining,” explains Jason Shachner, Lakewood City Councilman and the bill’s proponent.

The resolution acknowledges “that restaurants are critical to the vibrancy of Lakewood and to ensure that our local restaurants remain successful and that the public feels safe patronizing them the City of Lakewood should provide more opportunities for restaurants to expand their outdoor dining capacity to promote compliance with the Governor’s orders.”

To speed the way for restaurants to utilize these unconventional areas for outdoor dining, the City of Lakewood will temporarily waive or modify cumbersome requirements such as requiring a traffic study prior to the granting of a conditional use permit and requiring a fee for the same.

According to the resolution, the privileges will stay in place for the duration of the state of emergency declared by the State of Ohio, the County of Cuyahoga, or the City of Lakewood or until October 31, 2020, whichever comes first.

No word on if or when similar measures proposed to Cleveland City Council will pass. 

This article appears in May 20-26, 2020.

For 25 years, Douglas Trattner has worked as a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. His work as co-author on Michael Symon's cookbooks have earned him four New York Times Best-Selling Author honors, while his longstanding role as Scene dining editor has garnered awards of its own.

6 replies on “Lakewood City Council Says Restaurants Can Expand Outdoor Dining to Parking Lots, Public Rights of Way in Many Cases”

  2. Nope. Same shithead, different day.
    He was here long before the Plague arrived.

  3. Irish Democrat? You mean self-hating white person. If you check out the great articles scene has written about Irish people over the years, you might get in line with town hall to sue these racists.

  4. Thank you Lakewood. This is great news no bureaucracy just common sense and understanding of the current situation.

  5. Love Lakewood’s creativity! Use of all of Detroit by the library should be that all summer! Virus or not

  6. Knucklehead: Are they like the slef-hating Jews? I have hated the Slefs all my life. They liquidated my great-grandparents! Never again!

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