#mostly drinking

A change made by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board will allow cafes and bars to serve alcohol to patrons at outdoor sidewalk seating that doesn’t have a 42-inch-tall barrier, according to the SDOT blog. 

“Modeled on the sidewalk seating used in many European cities, this fence-free option will allow Seattle restaurants to integrate their sidewalk cafes with adjacent public space and improve customer movement,” according to the blog post. “Other U.S. cities, such as Portland and San Francisco already allow fence-free sidewalk cafes similar to those that will be tested in Seattle’s pilot program.”

Outdoor seating areas will need sidewalk markers, but will not require an actual fence or barrier. 

This is just a pilot project right now, and the City will be collecting data about the viability of this kind of seating; big challenges will likely be accessibility for folks with disabilities, including impaired vision, and impacts on safety. 

The City has been experimenting with lots of different ways to incorporate drinking and dining with pedestrian spaces; in 2015, SDOT rolled out the “streateries” pilot program, which allowed a select number of businesses to do something that had previously been thoroughly forbidden: Built outdoor dining spaces that weren’t directly adjacent to the building.