Outdoor Restaurant Seating Certificate Program

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

With the onset of the COVID Pandemic indoor dining capacity for restaurants was severely restricted, and in some cases eliminated. Restaurants needed to find a way to remain operational and save their businesses and jobs, but without compromising the health and safety of their public customers or employees. The obvious solution was to move to outdoor dining; however, there were several challenges that needed to be addressed from land-use considerations to traffic concerns, fire safety, and health and food safety issues. To address this in a collaborative and coordinated manner, Howard County, Maryland developed and launched an “Outdoor Restaurant Seating Certificate” program to allow restauranteurs to provide outdoor seating information for review and approval. On the front-end, the technology is easy and intuitive for non-technical restauranteurs to access and use, and on the back-end multiple county agencies are simultaneously updated and coordinated to allow quick and efficient review and approval, as well as follow-up inspections.