Animals

Dogs, Coming To a Chicago Patio Near You?

Wrong kind of dog.
Wrong kind of dog.

In the weird way that government works, we’re not so much talking about allowing dogs on more restaurant patios… as getting rid of a distinction between two kinds of restaurant licenses, in which one allows dogs, which must mean the other does not. Right now, we have 117 different types of business licenses, and Mayor Emanuel would like to streamline that down to a mere 48 (quick, how many can you name?) One result would be that the special dogs-allowed license would be folded into the main restaurant license, so in theory any restaurant that followed the rules (outside, no food just water, lots of cleaning) could allow dogs if they wanted to. Considering that just 98 businesses have the special dog license (and surely many more places than that turn a blind eye to the occasional dog in summer time), this seems a practical answer to the problem of a largely ignored solution to not much of a problem. We doubt that dogs on patios will be all that much more common than they are now, frankly. Nevertheless, as Chicago Business reports, that has some non-dog people worked up (see the comments section), worried that your Fluffy will be all over their food. We feel like we can trust restaurant owners and diners to work this one out for themselves without Big Bowser’s help, but we’ll see if aldermen agree on May 9. [Chicago Business]

Dogs, Coming To a Chicago Patio Near You?