PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City of Philadelphia is one step closer to permanently keeping the outdoor dining modifications that were created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of Philadelphia’s streetery outdoor dining structures, the ones in street parking spaces, will be allowed to continue to operate.
While Ben Fileccia with the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association admits there will be some winners and losers, he said this is an overall win for the city’s restaurant industry.
“The bill itself isn’t perfect; however, without them passing this, all of the streeteries would have gone away at the end of this month," said Fileccia.
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“In the bill, certain boundaries where the existing streeteries can remain, and then there are areas outside of certain boundaries where they are going to go through a legislative process if they want to continue.”
He added that about 70 to 80% of streeteries will be allowed to remain.
“What we want to do in the upcoming months is to make sure that the folks that are not included within the parameters of the boundaries have a clear path forward to allow them to continue operations if possible," Fileccia said.
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City Council President Darrell Clarke said safety was their biggest concern involving pedestrians, vehicles, and people with disabilities.
Another outdoor dining bill that passed City Council had to do with cafe licenses, the process by which a restaurant needed to get a permit to serve food at sidewalk tables.
“Last year, they made it very easy for these restaurants to continue operations when their entire dining was shut down," said Fileccia.
“That will extend the legislation that was passed during the pandemic for another year.”
