OCEAN CITY — In yet another example of something borne out of COVID-19 becoming permanent, resort planners this week signed off on an unenclosed, roofed deck adjacent to a popular midtown restaurant.
During the pandemic, the town has allowed businesses to create temporary outdoor seating areas to meet state restrictions on capacity, social distancing and indoor dining. As a result, many businesses came up with creative ways to expand their outdoor seating capacity and more than a few have decided to make those outdoor areas permanent.
Such was the case this week when the Ocean City Planning Commission had before it a site plan approval request from Ristorante Antipasti at 31st Street to construct a permanent 1,340 square-foot open air, unenclosed deck with a roof on the south side of the existing restaurant. Ristorante Antipasti has been utilizing the area proposed for the new permanent deck as a temporary outdoor seating area during the pandemic.
The additional square-footage of the new deck does not exceed the gross square-footage of the existing restaurant, so there is no impact on parking for the establishment. Last month, the planners somewhat reluctantly approved a permanent outdoor seating deck for an uptown restaurant when it was learned the addition was going to displace required parking.
That was not the case with the site plan approval request for Ristorante Antipasti this week. Zoning Administrator Kay Gordy told the commission the proposed addition met all of the zoning and code requirements, making its approval an easy one. Gordy said she also checked with State Highway Administration (SHA) to see if there were any concerns with ingress and egress.
“SHA had no problems with it,” she said. “This is an outdoor dining area. It’s not going to have a bar or anything. It’s just a roofed dining area for people to sit outside.”
Gordy told the commission the addition only makes permanent a temporary outdoor dining solution employed during COVID.
“That’s the area they have been using for the COVID outdoor seating,” she said. “It doesn’t have any impact on parking or anything else. It’s not a big departure from what they’re doing now.”
