By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
While Cape Elizabeth is still a far cry from Portland’s Old Port, many residents attended two public hearings last month, composed numerous emails and made phone calls to town officials regarding upcoming changes to the current Business District A (BA) zoning ordinance and its possible role in regulating bars, taverns or pubs in town. The planning board agreed to draft a new bar, tavern and pub ordinance at a workshop last week.
Planning Board Chairman Barbara Schenkel was alone in opposing the creation of the ordinance to define the difference between alcohol and food-based establishments – an issue sparked when Rudy’s of the Cape restaurant began serving alcohol – as she believed the town’s goals could be achieved by “tightening up the definition of a restaurant,” as was suggested at last month’s public hearing.
“We can address it by allowing the use [of bars, taverns or pubs],” board member Elaine Falender said. “To me, [Rudy’s] moved from one set of definitions to another.”
Schenkel said she believed allowing bars, taverns or pubs in town was not necessarily the desire of the public.
“Did everyone read the emails?” she asked. “It was pretty overwhelming. People don’t want bars in this town.”
Board member Thomas Dolan said he believed only a “vocal few” had expressed their opinions and agreed with board member Peter Hatem, who said “generally the concept [of bars, taverns or pubs] is acceptable to most people in town.”
“We need to be very clear and separate the two,” board member Scott Collins said. “Let’s define a bar as a bar, a restaurant as a restaurant, a tavern as a tavern and look at the state standards for hours of operation, entertainment, food and noise.”
Town Planner Maureen O’Meara, who will be writing the first draft of the ordinance, said she also believes residents are not entirely opposed to bars, taverns or pubs in town as long as they meet certain guidelines.
“I didn’t hear ‘I don’t want [bars, taverns or pubs,]’” she said. “I’m hearing [residents] would rather have people sitting at a table, eating more food and maybe putting restrictions on what percentage of sales can be alcohol.”
Hatem said although monitoring the percentage of alcohol sales sounds labor intensive for the code enforcement officer, it could be achieved by monitoring tax records. Based on the records, the town would be able to determine if an establishment was selling too much alcohol or too little food to be considered a restaurant.
Cape Elizabeth Code Enforcement Officer Bruce Smith said there are four active liquor licenses in town that allow the consumption of alcohol on site; both the Inn By The Sea hotel and the Good Table restaurant have full liquor licenses – meaning they can sell beer, wine and hard liquor to their patrons – while Ocean House Pizza and Rudy’s may only sell only beer and wine. 
Schenkel was reserved in supporting the drafting of the new ordinance that will be presented to the board at a workshop to be scheduled for next month.
“Take a crack at it and we’ll see,” she said. “And please don’t call it a bar, not in this community. Call it a pub!”
The board also began taking the first steps of “overhauling” the existing BA zone ordinance. In updating the BA permitted uses list and performance standards, the board compared it to the current Town Center (TC) zone.
“The structure of the [TC] works really well,” O’Meara said. “But there are some things that happen in the Town Center that wouldn’t fit the BA, such as required sidewalks. I’m not hearing the same demand for that in these areas.”
The board agreed to include similar TC stipulations for elderly housing, convenience stores, multi-use buildings, existing single-family homes, daycare facilities and gas or service stations in the BA zones. The zone will also include stipulations for the inclusion of bed and breakfast establishments, which could include suggestions from the public concerning a separate public hearing on May 20. They also agreed to prohibit the presence of any large agricultural livestock, methadone clinics, carwashes and any new construction of single-family homes in the BA zone. Future workshops will help the board determine specific performance and design standards for permitted uses.
“It seems very slow, but forward progress is forward progress,” O’Meara said. 
While they agreed to propose amendments to the ordinance, which would affect both the BA zone on Shore Road near the South Portland border and on Route 77 near Two-Lights Road, board members said they would possibly be in favor of creating different ordinances for each area.
“They’re not perfectly aligned in terms of their character,” O’Meara said. “But if you write it now, there will be plenty of chances to go back and edit.”