Radnor’s Board of Commissioners recently to keep current outdoor dining hours and to require all restaurants with outdoor dining to be more than 100 feet from a residential zoning district.

The working draft of outdoor dining regulations had originally proposed to allow outdoor dining until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

The new version of Radnor Township’s outdoor dining regulations, which include an extension of the outdoor dining season from the end of September to the end of November, is going to be reviewed by the Delaware County and Radnor Township planning commissions.

Outdoor dining is currently prohibited in some zoning districts and not at all regulated in others. The regulations would permit outdoor dining as an accessory use in all of the zoning districts that allow restaurants. Regulations will not apply to those restaurants that currently have legal outdoor dining. No more than 50 seats outside would be allowed under the regulations.

At the Oct. 22 meeting, commissioners John Fisher, Don Curley and John Nagle voted for the 10 p.m. closing time and 100-foot rule (the original version allowed restaurants 12 seats even if they were less than 100 feet from a residential district).

"We want the positive impact of outdoor dining, but we don’t want the negative,” Fisher said.

What do you think about outdoor dining? How much should the distance from tables to houses matter?

Watch the discussion of outdoor dining in the video section of this article, starting at the 28-minute mark.