About a year ago, the East Hampton Town Board decided to allow some restaurants to apply for permission to add outdoor tables. In a three-year trial run, restaurants could now add seats equal to their outdoor maximum capacity, as long as they met certain zoning standards. It is not clear how many have taken advantage of the new rule; previously most outdoor seating arrangements were not allowed.
Eating out is lovely on a summer evening. There seems to be more room to breathe and enjoy a languorous meal among friends. In fact, just this week we spotted Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez among the patrons on what had been once a restaurant’s side lawn. To some extent, the town was basically reflecting reality in that many restaurants had already added outdoor seats. But it also created a potential mess by potentially almost doubling the number of patrons on site at any one time.
Under the trial run, restaurants would be permitted to have an equal number of seats inside and outside — the catch being that their total guest capacity had to remain unchanged. If a table was occupied outside by four people, for example, that would technically mean — on paper — that there would be four fewer diners inside. This instantly created a disincentive for restaurant operators to take advantage of the new dining-capacity rule — why comply and run the risk of being caught for not keeping indoor tables empty when they could more easily add outdoor seating and greatly increase the total number of patrons they could serve?
Why this matters is that very often here, restaurants and other prepared food purveyors create traffic and parking problems along busy roadways like Montauk Highway. This is because the total number of guests and staff far exceeds the available off-street parking. On the Napeague stretch a particularly dangerous situation with vehicles parked on both sides of the 55-miles-per-hour Route 27 is just one instance of the town’s poor planning. Similar issues line the highway margins all the way to the Southampton line.
The way we see it, there are too many cars on the road for the town to continue not to see the risky situation it has allowed. Yes, it is terrific that restaurants are doing well, but the price in terms of road congestion and risk of accidents may also be too high.