Vancouver allowing more restaurants and bars to extend patio hours

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – With the nice weather finally here, you may notice more and more people sitting on the patio, throwing back a few. The City of Vancouver is in the process of allowing more restaurants and bars to extend their patio hours so they can serve liquor longer.

So far, of the 77 applications for the extended hours, 68 have been approved, and the locations are in different areas from Downtown Vancouver, to Kitsilano to Main Street.

Manager of Street Activities Scott Edwards explains restaurants need to meet certain requirements before they’re given the go ahead. “We’ve tried to streamline that process as much as possible and one of the main criteria that we’re looking at is a history of any noise complaints or how they’re managing the use of that space to try and mitigate any concerns from the surrounding businesses or residents.”

He admits city staff did get a couple of complaints last year. “Any concerns or complaints, often the first way we hear about it is through 311. But we do work closely with both property use inspectors as well as the VPD, just because the complaints could come in at any time of day or night and we do coordinate with other city resources to try and manage that as best as possible.”

“We have a lot of mixed use buildings within the city and that is one of our primary concerns. There are some businesses that are within buildings that do have existing restrictions for how long a patio can stay open and in those cases they’re actually not allowed to apply for the extended hours. There are some where they have to close by 10 p.m., for instance,” adds Edwards.

In 2014, owners of 300 large patios — which means a place where both food and booze are served — applied to extend their hours.

This year, small and large patios can apply to stay open until 1 a.m., that’s extended from 11 p.m. in 2013, and midnight last year.

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