'Bring Your Own Bottle' Ordinance On The Horizon

In response to calls from some business owners, an ordinance allowing local restaurants to let customers bring their own alcoholic beverages may be introduced at next week’s Township Committee meeting.

The committee discussed a draft ordinance at Wednesday’s workshop meeting and instructed township Attorney Joseph Oxley to craft one for introduction at next week’s public meeting.

The ordinance would have restrictions, however.

The new ordinance would eliminate a clause in the township’s current local law banning consumption of alcoholic beverages at establishments that provide outdoor seating, township Administrator Joseph Verruni said.

Instead, the new ordinance would stipulate that outdoor alcoholic beverage consumption must be fully enclosed by a permanent structure, the entrance and exit to which must be made through the main facility, or must be at all times monitored by an employee who is at least 18 years old, Verruni said.

Township police have also asked that a stipulation be made requiring an emergency alarmed exit, Verruni said.

, a Route 35 restaurant, had requested permission from the township to allow its customers to bring their own wine and beer, and the committee began mulling the new ordinance.

Township police had requested that any such restaurants with outside seating require their customers to enter outdoor areas through main entrances -- ensuring underage patrons could not sneak alcohol onto the premises.

But some members said that policy would be too harsh on businesses and, after some discussion, seemed to agree that any future ordinance would require restaurants without enclosed outdoor seating to have a hostess stationed outside.

“We’re trying to help business,” Committeeman Jeff Foster has said. “Outside seating restaurants are concerned (about this).”

There are currently a handful of restaurants in town with BYOB licenses, but the future ordinance would streamline the regulations governing any future establishments, committee members have said.