May 30th editorial in the Guelph Mercury:
Making the downtown appealing at night to more than just young people heading to the bars to drink is a tricky task. On weekends especially, stores are closed early in the evening and the one drawing factor of the city core is its great restaurants, offering fare that mimics a global village. Those restaurants, however, could attract even more customers if they could keep patrons on their patios past 11 p.m.
People have long been suggesting ideas to make the downtown more livable — more apartments above stores, longer hours for retail establishments, an outright ban on any new bars, closing some streets to vehicular traffic — but many of these ideas are hard to implement in a short period. There are some ideas, however, that are easier to implement, including allowing patios at restaurants, where the patrons are not likely to cause trouble, to stay open past 11 p.m., until the normal closing time for the establishments. Some restaurant owners are upset the current bylaw forces them to move people inside if they are having a glass of wine on the patio past 11 p.m.
For anyone who complains that longer patio hours would mean more problems for the downtown, there is a distinguishing factor between restaurants and bars. Those who would frequent patios allowed to stay open would not be the type to simply sit and drink alcohol. This is simply the nature of most of the restaurants that have patios in the downtown. If it is a case of drunken rowdyism that people want to address, it is the bars that must be targeted, starting with staggered closing hours. Making sure that thousands of people partying downtown don’t all spill out onto the streets at the same time is a better step to take than keeping people who want to have a nice meal with a drink from doing so past 11 p.m.
Everyone wants to be outside in the summer. Sitting on a patio can make the experience even better. We hope the push by business owners and members of the Downtown Board of Management to further examine this issue results in a motion before city council to change the patio closing hours. And we hope city council understands this would have a positive effect on downtown revitalization.