Meaford is bringing back its outdoor patio pilot program this year, and moving towards making it a permanent feature in the municipality.
Meaford Committee of the Whole voted during Monday’s meeting to extend the pilot for 2021, while also directing staff to bring forward an outdoor patio policy by March 2022 to establish a permanent program.
The pilot program allows businesses to apply to set up temporary outdoor patios on municipal lands — including on-street parking spaces or sidewalks — from May 1 to Oct. 31.
Meaford’s Manager of Strategic Initiatives Janet Sperling told councillors the outdoor patio program was originally approved in 2015 and implemented last year to help businesses through Covid restrictions.
The municipality set up concrete barriers along parts of Sykes Street to allow restaurants who took part to set up patios in on-street parking spaces.
“This became a valuable means for supporting restaurants when indoor dining was prohibited or capacity reduced,” Sperling explains. “One of the benefits we found with patios last year is it certainly helped to generate activity in the downtown, to get people visiting businesses and shopping local.”
Council also resolved to approve the use of grant funding from the downtown and economic community improvement plans for businesses that did not receive funding last year to help with costs associated with establishing an outdoor patio.
Sperling notes the program is focused on downtown Meaford, but offers flexibility for other businesses in the municipality that are trying to expand patios and don’t have adequate space.
The expectation is most of the same restaurants who had outdoor patios downtown in 2020 will take part again this year.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario temporarily amended the Liquor Licences Act to allow servers to carry across unlicenced areas to accommodate outdoor patios that sprung up across the province last year.
Sperling notes the AGCO recently extended the same permissions, but there’s no guarantee it will continue past this year.
“We’ll have to see if this will happen again in 2022, or if they’ll make permanent changes or stop it altogether,” Sperling told councillors.
Council also approved a recommendation to waive a $200 fee for reviewing applications to the outdoor patio program and putting agreements in place, as part of the municipality’s continued support of businesses through the recovery. This fee was waived in 2020 as well.