is is go ahead and start the workshop meeting for may third jennifer i take the role councilmember thorson here councilmember peterson here councilmember wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here quirm is president motion adopted agenda some of your honor by councilmember peterson second second by council member wong any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye are the agendas adopted we have one topic and that's the enclosures for establishment serving alcohol outdoors i'll turn it over to city manager thank you mayor furlong and council members so when i arrived at the city of north st paul um max steiner was on the cusp of you know planning and hoping to open the summer planning to open soon and they had come to me with a concern that the fencing requirements around outdoor patios uh seemed onerous to them i read the requirements and based on my experience in other communities it seemed a little bit onerous to me as well but i didn't have a lot of experience in other communities so i had asked brandi howe and the planning staff at wsb to take a look at what other communities recommend or require and then give us some thoughts and some options for moving forward so i think with that i would just pass it on to brandy welcome brandy thanks for the introduction so i had our planning assistant jared johnson helped me do a little bit of research on behalf of mr stark and your existing ordinance basically states that if there is going to be an outdoor patio the area must be enclosed by a six foot tall fence and it should have a lock and gate a gate with a lock rather so based on the inquiry from max diner we did the research of other communities and we looked at city of stillwater city of rosemont robinsdale and those were the only ones and then based on a conversation that i had with mr stark yesterday we also looked at white bear lake to see what their regulations were and they did not have any and it was um based up in a follow-up conversation with jared johnson there's not that many communities that he did the research upon that had regulations for this type of enclosure for outdoor seating so we'll just kind of look at the ones that did um and maybe i can just pop pause for one second i you know i think that the rationale for the enclosure and were you going to cover that we'll go ahead the rationale for the enclosure is obviously it's a place where a patio where typically alcohol would be served and the thought is that you know you don't want to make it easy for somebody inside the patio that has a an alcoholic beverage to just hand it to somebody outside the patio for consumption you know to an underage person or um you know somebody that really um isn't a patron and so that's why the the six foot fence was enacted for that purpose that's my understanding it just seems odd to me that a six foot fence would uh hinder people from passing something between a go ahead so one of the other reasons is when you apply for a liquor license what you have to do is be able to delineate where that alcohol will be served and so i know at times there's been discussion about well could i buy a beer and then just you know walk off and walk around with it and that isn't an option in minnesota um and so you know whether it should be a six foot fence or planters or something you know patios have become more commonplace to serve you want to be outside how do you delineate it and so this is part of that process and so if there isn't a demarcation of sorts if you will it becomes hard to say well this is the premise this right spot um i think things that what i've saw once kovitt hit candidly is things did loosen up a little bit on that we saw a lot more say sidewalk service and things of that nature that was during the emergency orders when we we flexed a little bit on that but i i know that i've encountered the conversation on this point of well how much do you really need is it really an effort to stop the passing over the beer is any of that going to stop this probably not but it is an idea of it demarcates the premise where alcohol can be served and that's really the point of it okay yup and so minnesota statue requires that the spaces be compact and contiguous but there really isn't a whole lot else in terms of what what the boundary needs to be if any so cities can impose further regulations such as requiring offense what you have now so we looked at stillwater and i've actually been up there recently in some of their situations and they don't have any requirements for patio enclosures they do have a several patios with different types of enclosures they have elevated patios planter boxes iron fencing with brick columns wood fencing with gates here's some other examples robinsdale they require a three-foot fence and rosemont there's no fence requirement but if they have one it has to be wrought iron so it's more of an aesthetic thing as opposed to keeping the alcohol confined so options for you to consider are you know basically do you want to have any enclosure and if you do what kind maybe it's a buffer you might want to limit height if you do have an enclosure you might want to consider whether or not you need a gate to keep people in and if it needs a lock and then we could also add additional conditions that would give city council some flexibility in terms of each individual applicant for a liquor license so here's just some images for you to take a look at so there's the tall wrought iron fence that you could pass the beer through a little bit more casual dining space so the shorter fence just basically demarcating the area planter boxes a tall fence just a different variety but it doesn't appear to have any enclosure or a gate rather so that is the end of my presentation yeah and i would just add that we asked police chief babenroth if he had concerns he's not he wasn't able to attend tonight but he said from a law enforcement perspective we have not noticed a significant problem with customers purchasing alcoholic beverages and taking the beverages off the business premises or passing alcoholic beverages to non-customers outside of the business patio area public safety is not enhanced or reduced by having the six foot fence requirement however maintaining some type of liquor establishment fence requirement is important to public safety because it provides a structure defining the alcoholic beverage serving area lowering the fence to three feet is advantageous to public safety because it would allow easier access for any officer or emergency responder to access an incident in the in the business or patio area so those were his comments so to me it sounds like it's more of a delineation of make it uh the area where drinking is allowed i mean that's you know i think last year when the bars did the temporary where they put up the little little fencing or the little chains to make it an area that kind of ropes off an area where the drinking is allowed and i i don't see a six foot high fence uh deterring people from passing drinks through uh sorry do you know did the six foot high fence come from anywhere or is that just something the city i don't know other than what i've traditionally seen is at least in residential areas six foot seems to be sort of the cap on what you'll allow for a fence in terms of height a lot of the i don't have any survey results but i do see six feet as just kind of being a maximum height in a lot of areas i guess i haven't seen it in terms of a required height that that was new to me from your codes perspective that it required a six-foot fence and again i assume it was because of the idea of presenting the passability of the alcohol or something like that but i you know i'm not really sure served as much of a deterrent in that respect and i did have a chance to talk to phil and what he said was it's more of a demarcation from his standpoint and candidly from a law enforcement perspective if you come in and see something it's easier to address it if you don't have to deal with a six-foot fence if it's you know a little bit lower my recollection is phil supported actually having a lower fence um i hope i'm not misrepresenting that but that's that's what it kind of sounded like he supported a smaller fence and that's what i've seen in other communities too it's about de-marking the area and then candidly you know some of it is up to them just the business to police that on their own i mean it is their liquor license um they they know what happens if booze starts to leave the premise they know what happens if booze is being passed to minors so you know some of these codes are written at a point when that was a little bit more problematic the underage service has gone way down in my opinion from where it used to be um so i i'm not sure is that because you're older or is that could be yeah fair fair um i just everyone knows the penalties that that are associated within the liability with it and it's just not it's not worth it right right anybody else yeah uh excuse me well i think this is a good step forward i mean i would agree that i think that our old you know ordinance is a little too restrictive um you know i'm thinking about current patios um i know american legion just spent quite a few or quite a bit of money constructing a new beautiful patio and it has a you know a higher fence but i don't know if they were doing that based off of our code or if that's just what they wanted to do but i mean that clearly that used to be just kind of like the front of their parking lot now there's no question that that's their patio the fact that the fence is higher i mean i don't i don't really think it needs to be but if that was their choice and if they did that because it was our existing ordinance and they could have done a shorter fence like the examples that we have um you know i don't i agree i don't think that a you know wrought iron fence that you can easily reach through is preventing people sneaking alcohol through the gate i don't think that was the intent but you know there's there's a newman's patio which basically is just a straight fence across and i think they've in the past there was questions or issues about you know the the beverages or beer being stored in their bar area and how it was locked up that's probably more of a liquor ordinance deal but i think it's more of a security issue for them but it you know the the gates locked and and when it when you know during busy times they have some like in the car show there's usually someone there um manning the door checking ids or making sure people are leaving their drinks um within that area not walking out i know there's other establishments in the past that have inquired about patios vfw sidewinders maybe even the polar lounge underneath that kind of i don't know it's not like an awning area but that overhang um you know and i think in the past they've been told no um you know some establishments maybe don't have the area like some of the other places do but there's a small area so i think you know if we can look at making it easier for these establishments to establish some sort of patio area that meets the state guidelines you know i'm all supportive of it councilmember peterson i agree with council member thorson i don't want them to go into debt you know trying to beautify their area i mean these are nice examples i've seen them down in rochester too they're very nice but um i don't know if um the establishments have that you know i'm sure they can do something you know and but um i hope it's within their means that's all i have thanks could i offer a suggestion on that thought line of thought those options that were part of the presentation or simply that you could include a requirement that just simply states you need to have some sort of enclosure you can do any variety of these it could be a fence even but a smaller one and i would imagine that the six foot fence requirement now that you're discussing some of the existing fences in the community may had to do with the fact that probably they're in the alley or office epila which has that alley feel as opposed to off of more of the main street or you would traditionally have a sidewalk cafe and you certainly wouldn't want a six-foot fence in that environment but i think if if you're looking for more flexibility we can find a way to build that into the code with that without making it too costly for the applicant yeah i think the important thing here is delineation you know making it a set patio area and if they're consistent or maybe not consistent you know i was looking at some of these plantings i mean that looks it looks nice but i think we want to keep it you know if the establishments were to [Music] uh uh use the patio area outside the the establishments i think it should be something that's uh that looks nice too for the for the downtown where we last year we threw uh picnic tables and i mean we're trying to help the buyers as fast as we could and you know uh because of the pandemic but now that's over with and they're not allowed to to do that at this time because that was a temporary uh ordinance that we declared during the pandemic so right now uh i think we need to kind of set a standard for for the downtown and i think uh the planning commission kind of looked at that maybe councilmember wong can touch on that sure yeah i think lisa ritchie has been looking into different options to just present as examples for businesses and to look at you know something that has higher grade commercial grade i should say um material so in the weather or just through use that they would be able to maintain you know their their their aesthetic their function um so i believe that's the direction but there's not any specifics on you know the design features that's gonna maintain flexible council member are you not go ahead no go ahead go ahead yeah so one thing i was thinking about too is we've had some discussion about this and the planning commission is taking a look at a solution called parklets it's or street cafes the city of minneapolis and many cities all over the country have this model and it's basically businesses invest in expanding um you know some sort of deck and it would go into a parking space so it would provide opportunity for you know folks to still walk through if they're going through downtown but there's a designated area for dining that you can you know delineate from from the rest of the sidewalk and i do believe some of their tool kits they have those available they provide some safety um guidelines as well about you know maybe putting up a concrete block here um you know three feet outside of the area so um it maintains you know its safety for pedestrians and diners brandi do we have an example of the parklet was that part of your presentation or no it wasn't but you know while you're discussing this i know of some examples that exist i could pull them up on google earth sure if we can do that that'd be great sure and you probably have some places that might that you could point me to as well okay while she's looking that up i um if i may discuss a little bit about the points of of cost and what the trade-off might be for for that having some sort of enclosure versus maybe not having an enclosure my thought is if a business is trying to expand their deck and we require an um a fence whether it's six feet or three feet it can be any materials the likelihood that maybe a business would only be able to afford something like aluminum versus if it was just open and it would save them a lot of money too so i'm just kind of thinking about that trade-off versus you know having any fence versus um you know just an open deck i just pulled up the two i've seen those on the on the east side of st paul uh i think it was on uh arcade avenue uh it was sitting outside on a parking spot and here's an actual example i've walked by before this is in iowa city oh yep um so it's about a one block of their downtown they don't have a time i mean this is a community that is a college town with 30 some thousand students so there's always an issue with parking but they decided that this was a an important priority to provide outdoor seating so that's just an example of what they look like and then i pulled up google images and they come in a lot of different varieties and then lisa has provided to the plan commission that kind of how-to guide from you said it was saint paul minneapolis minneapolis um it was very thorough very informational we could provide that in the future oh here's another one that seems pretty typical something else to consider is the ordinance if you decide to revise it the regulations don't have to be quite as onerous within the ordinance itself but the downtown design guidelines which the planning commission intends to update in the near future might be a place to add those aesthetic components so the ordinance could be you need to require something you need to provide a demarcation of some sorts but refer to this document for how to implement it that's a member cole uh so we're looking at our ordinance right now and how it reads uh it limits i believe the establishments down there right now in regards to allowing some sort of outdoor patio similar to what they had last year i don't think i don't think they could do what they did last year according to this ordinance in terms of providing alcohol or just allowing outdoor seating allowed outdoor seating i i'm not from is familiar with that topic and whether or not it's allowed i'd have to verify that but um the existing ordinance in terms of the alcohol requirement is that you shall have a six foot tall fence if you want to have outdoor um and i think maybe what the mayor is talking about is you know during covid we allowed you allowed service areas in the public right-of-way whereas i think this is contemplating it would be on uh a property owner's property now whether we were lacks i i'm assuming we relax on the on the rules on the six foot fence as well during covet in that public right-of-way situation knowing that it was intended to be temporary yeah i think we just we allowed them to go out out onto the public right away with very little restrictions in regards to look like uh temporary tables tents sun shelters may be erected yeah we're pretty pretty relaxed in that and i think that was common so as we rewrite this ordinance uh it sounds like we were looking at eliminating that six foot high fence and what does that look like well i think um you know brandi tried to present you with some options uh you know there's some fence ranges in height or doing it in a different way with with planter boxes um you know as brandy said there's there could be an opportunity to have some flexibility to say you know here are the the important thing is the spirit and intent that you're delineating your area uh and then here are two or three options for how you could do that i do like the idea that there'd be the the ordinance that would apply regardless of where you're at in the city and then in the downtown district there would be some extra requirements for some of the aesthetics over and above i think that makes sense and it's my understanding that any license that would come forward for this sort of outdoor seating area would come to this body and then you'd have the opportunity to give your input on their proposal is that correct i believe so as part of the liquor license can you say that again oh i was trying to explain that if any time anybody would want to come forward with such a request for an outdoor seating area where they would serve alcohol they would first need to come to this body to get approval of that liquor license and then that would be your opportunity to impose conditions um or react to their proposal and use the current section that you've cited is that in the zoning or is that in the liquor license that is in the liquor license so that is that is where we would handle it then just as part of the liquor licensing we should spell it out in the code though not do the case by case thing just so that an applicant understands here's what's expected of you when you apply for a liquor license yeah we make this change in the liquor licensing so when they come forward with the license it's just right there [Music] yeah it's code section 117.120 uh b2 it's yeah it's in there so like if i'm just trying to think out loud here uh an example would be like rotties on the corner i know they also do have somewhat of a back area that they possibly could do a patio or something but on the front it's kind of a larger [Music] expansive area of a sidewalk versus if you go down a little farther like in front of newman's it's just more of a narrow sidewalk and they have their own patio area but what what rotties was allowed to do was kind of put that temporary fencing up it was just kind of some road cones with some plastic chains but they you know could fit three or four tables in there and and so in that particular area and i think that's kind of similar what's across the street with where max diner is gonna be it's a larger area and so if they you know is there a way we can write this code that says you know if you can come forward to the council and present you know an area that meets these qualifications maybe strike out this the height requirement and just highlight that it needs to be you know delineated or you know and in the case of like rotties where if they want to do something separate like in the parking stall they don't have parking stalls right in front of their establishment it would be it so it wouldn't be contiguous in that sense because it you know it's like six or seven feet away where there's the first angled parking but if you know i don't know how that that's kind of a different can of worms but at least if you can say if you're looking at doing something like this you have to meet certain requirements like one you can't block whatever the standard height width of the sidewalk is sure and then i think that you're touching on some really good points and um i'm questioning if this is a separate like right maybe it's a combination liquor license but also right-of-way permitting perhaps i'm not sure how you would go about authorizing somebody to put a table on the on the public right-of-way um and then the contiguous part i'd like to get soren's opinion on on that and whether or not you're um during covet of some of these businesses that we're putting patios out if they are liquor serving establishments and how that has been functioning but if signs were put like let's say those first three stalls i know it's public parking but it's pretty common where you'll see you know this parking is reserved for this establishment or whatever would that be kind of a workaround if you said you know if roddy's wanted to do one of those parklet and they met all the requirements and they want to use like one or two stalls and to make it continuous you say these stalls are reserved for park roddy's parking only i mean i don't know if that's yeah i think it's been touched on there's two issues one the fence i look at the fencing issue as expanding land that you already control so your back area and and some some may not be able to expand outdoors they just may not have the land right so that's issue one if you have the land what are we going to require to call it compact and contiguous the secondary discussion is do you want to allow businesses to expand their operations into publicly controlled and operated areas and that's you know that's the policy discussion do you give up some parking stalls so the business that are publicly controlled so the business can operate in there um and that's that is scott you touched on it the those parklets or whatever we're calling them i well i've worked on that issue uh and it is you know is it compact and the contiguous is the issue uh it's definitely compact um and so we we can look into that but if there's direction to i mean i think one issue is the fence i seem to hear some you know agreement on that issue the how do we expand operations into a public area that is something we have to look at because if it's just a temporary thing is it a liquor license amendment and so we just want to make sure if we're in support of it just the process so we don't over encumber it but you are you are allowing one entity to use a public area at that point for a business consideration and it's just something to consider and the other thing to consider when allowing them to use the public right-of-way and it touches on the contiguous and if that causes problems is it they need the areas the sidewalks still need to be ada accessible as well and if i made the tool kit from minneapolis they have the dimensions for ada as well to accommodate um ada and then just also different things to consider in your design like drainage from the site or from the parking spot so there are some things that have been done that might you know enhance you know some of these spaces and still you know provide some criteria are these parklets are they permanent then or are they they're temporary temporary so they move them or they're not conducive to plowing snow no so where do they go that's up to the business the few that i've seen seem to be very movable if you will um it's usually just building with some two by fours and wood and i've seen them just loaded up on the trucks and move but they are they're meant to be seasonal now we all have instances where i know that some businesses were allowed to bring in the white tents and the heaters during the winter and all of that's coveted that was that was meant to be stop gap the bubbles yeah the igloos right council number so what if let's let's say you know obviously we're mindful of the temporary uh you know the covet stuff but on friday nights during the car show it's enough stand-alone event on its own and the road is shut down so what if some of these establishments wanted just on friday nights set up temporary seating like they did does that is that you know fall under the car show category or is it kind of i still need an area i mean the idea of serving beer and being able to just walk the streets that that liquor license isn't going to allow that because you have to consume it in that compact and contiguous premise but if if an establishment wanted to set up something like what we're talking about but only dir do it during the car shows what we've done in the past yeah or what we did we've done some temporary licensing clothing stuff of that nature but again it hasn't allowed them to roam the streets no and yeah that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about like roddy's situation where they had something set up in front of their pet you know in front of their business and it was like their outdoor patio but it was clearly i think we've done things on a temporary basis okay just i i don't recall your exact code provision on that but it's still just to be clear it allows them to expand the facility but it still needs to be in a compact and contiguous area councilmember peterson throwing a wrench in there how about those tables and the chairs because i've been getting asked about that from that last bar meeting we had has that been uh yeah we discussed it at the planning commission and i think we decided on more commercial grade materials so you know we have some examples that i think lisa ritchie will provide to the businesses just to give some options kind of anxious before the car show to get something squared away but of course very nice and you know that that's probably more important right now i was going to say right now they're not allowed to do it no so is what i'm hearing the the roaming around no not the roaming but the chairs the picnic tables outside all that was allowed during covid it was a temporary right temporary uh we can make some of those public spaces available but again um i i just i don't want kobit to become the well we did it last year we pushed on some some stuff on that that isn't the rules anymore we would need to define the area we would need to try and delineate it or just make it clear where the area of service is if you want to have some outdoor tables you can do that but again it needs to be within a certain area we have to decide whether we want to allow it on public property things of that nature so is that something that we could work with try to rewrite this ordinance i'm not sure where that ordinance is if it even exists but i'll take a look and see what is on the books in terms of seating out out on the public right-of-way and provide some ideas or options in terms of how to make it a little bit more flexible a lot of communities do allow it but the limitations are basically related to the amount of land on the sidewalk if you've got a very narrow sidewalk you still need to make sure you're in you know there's adequate room for the public to walk through no and that's it and and candidly some business when i've seen it because you still need to have the ada you still need to have the accessibility and so candidly some businesses because of their location won't qualify or it just won't make sense because their location on a corner or something like that so that's you know not everyone will get the same opportunity right i think that's something we can look into is whether these um kind of i'll call them like satellite patio areas in the right of way um would be doable you know what it would take what some of the pros and cons would be so that's certainly something we can look into i would add that you're in the process of updating your downtown revitalization plan and one of the goals is to make it a more lively walkable downtown environment where you can see people are here having a couple of chairs outside of a coffee shop where there's some casual coffee drinking going on is probably not a bad thing you may not want to have people drinking pints of beer maybe you do i don't know but yeah we take a look and see what what the options are so right now love's ice cream has some tables outside for coffee under the ordinance are they allowed to do that i have no idea so i mean candidly sometimes things just show up i don't know if that was asked for if was just put out there that's why i close my eyes when i walk around [Laughter] walking into buildings but alcohol is different than coffee it it is i mean there's that extra layer of you cannot leave the defined premises with booze i mean putting a a table out and maybe having a display of an antique or allowing people to sit and drink coffee you don't have any of the liquor licensing that's just then uh hey that this is the city's right of way you're obstructing it please move your stuff and the alcohol is just another layer okay all right do we have enough information i believe so yeah i yes i do um so it sounds like we need to act quickly because you've got people wanting to build things and possibly sit outside so this will probably be coming forward shortly okay sorry you got anything to add or not all right that's it yeah i've just uh you know we're very fortunate to have brandy in this capacity so thanks to to brandi and her team for for doing this work for us thank you brandi thank you for the opportunity anybody else got anything to add to it if not uh we got nothing else motion to adjourn it's a move move by council member one second second by councilmember peterson in the discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed we are adjourned till 6 30 6 6. you