The City of Edgewood is instituting a temporary window of opportunity for restaurants in its boundaries to expand their outdoor seating without having to apply for a permit.
Governor DeSantis has instituted Phase One of his plan to reopen the state and lift stay-at-home restrictions prohibiting Floridians from gathering in restaurant dining rooms but has limited the amount of diners to 25 percent of approved occupancy. That cap on diners will also have the side effect of limiting the number of meals a restaurant can serve over the next few weeks.
Mayor John Dowless of Edgewood is temporarily waiving city code restrictions that would otherwise prohibit the addition of outdoor seating to local restaurants over the next 30 days in order to encourage proper social distance procedures and the spacing out of individual tables.
Restaurants can make use of nearby parking spaces and greenspace but must not block sidewalks or hinder ADA accessibility. You can’t put a table in the middle of the street either, but that should go without saying.
Restaurants with smaller dining rooms, that would be restricted to only 25 percent of allowable indoor dining space, will be able to spill out onto their properties to make it more profitable to return to work.
