Image via iStockPhoto.

Don’t piss off dog owners, local officials learned, as the D.C. Council quickly took action to allow pooches on bar and restaurant patios.

D.C. Code has had a longstanding rule against allowing most animals on the premises of food-serving establishments, but the law didn’t get in the way of the legions of people who often brought their four-legged friends to outdoor locations. Some establishments, like The Midlands, even had their own bar dogs.

That changed when the D.C. Department of Health left flyers at The Midlands and Wonderland Ballroom, another Ward 1 spot, in September, telling them they could not allow animals, with the exception of service animals, on the premises. Doing so could incur a $500 fine. Establishments and their patrons alike characterized it as a “crackdown.”

The outcry came quickly. Ward 7 Councilmember and Health Committee Chair Vincent Gray said he received “100 or more emails from people in the past two days complaining about this policy.” He worked with Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau, Ward 4’s Brandon Todd, and Ward 6’s Charles Allen to introduce the Dining With Dogs Emergency Act of 2017.

The bill, which passed unanimously on Tuesday at the D.C. Council, leaves it up to the establishment to decide whether it wants to allow dogs in outdoor dining areas or unenclosed sidewalk cafés, and can limit dogs based on their “breed, size, or temperament.”

“Dining With Dogs” requires the restaurant or bar to have clear signage explaining its dog policy, a separate entrance that doesn’t go to an indoor seating area, and a way for patrons to get rid of dog poop. Owners need to keep their four-legged freaks on a leash and can’t leave them unattended.

It tries to assuage the concerns of germaphobes by underlining that food employees can’t handle the dogs, and live animals still can’t access food establishments.

The emergency legislation differs from that in places like Montgomery County, Md. and Arlington, Va., where restaurants and bars can apply for permits and exemptions. In D.C., there’s no such red tape, at least for the 90 days in which the emergency legislation is effective.

An emergency bill takes significantly less time to wind its way through the council and doesn’t require Congressional approval, so you can expect to see pooches on patios shortly.

Since announcing his involvement in the “Dining With Dogs” bill, Gray has continually used the issue as a way to ding Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration for a so-called “War on Pets.”

For its part, the Department of Health said in a statement in response to the outcry that it would “review best practices and evaluate the agency’s posture on the matter.”

Gray hasn’t let up. “Don’t we have problems that are far more important?” he said to DCist, citing the opioid crisis and temporary closure of United Medical Center’s maternity ward, among a litany of other issues facing D.C.

Gray’s attacks are leading political observers to conclude that he may be getting ready to challenge Bowser, whose defeat of him in 2014 booted him from the mayoral office after one term. So is he running for mayor in 2018? “The best I can say is ‘maybe,'” he told DCist in late September. “It is something that I am certainly seriously thinking about.”

There’s one constituency that the “Dining With Dogs” legislation makes no efforts to reach. While it explicitly names dogs, it makes no reference to cats or other pets. Wonder why.

Via Giphy.

Previously:
There May Be Changes To Dog Ban On Bar Patios After Health Dept. Crackdown Has Folks Barking Mad