Mitch Einhorn, co-owner of Lush Wine & Spirits, was floored this spring when a city inspector showed up at his Roscoe Village cafe and told him to take down the strings of decorative white lights around his outdoor seating area.
The lights weren’t any different from those adorning close to a dozen other outdoor dining areas nearby.
But the inspector from the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection said decorative lights aren’t allowed in the public way, which is where sidewalk cafes sit.
Who knew?
Certainly not Einhorn.
The Chicago Sun-Times reviewed about 12 blocks across three North Side neighborhoods and found more than 40 restaurants, bars and other businesses had string lights decorating their sidewalk dining areas.
They light up outdoor dining areas on Lincoln Avenue in North Center and Lincoln Square; on Randolph and West Fulton Market streets, west of Halsted Street; and on Roscoe Street in Roscoe Village, within a few blocks of Einhorn’s business.
The lights are typically strung high above the sidewalk. Some are draped around nearby parkway trees or city light poles. Others adorn wooden pergolas that define sidewalk dining areas.
Many are plugged into outdoor outlets or hooked up to extension cords that run up the side of buildings to keep them off the ground. In some instances, the cords are hidden inside a conduit mounted on a pergola.
Elisa Sledzinska, BACP’s deputy commissioner for communications and outreach, says the glowing lights are “not legal.”
“Under the Municipal Code of Chicago, string lights are not permitted in sidewalk cafes,” she said in an email.
It’s unclear if the lights aren’t allowed because of safety or other concerns.
She said the agency “conducts complaint-driven investigations at businesses throughout the City of Chicago to ensure compliance with Chicago’s Municipal Code,” and those usually originate with calls to 311.
Einhorn says he doesn’t know who filed the complaint that prompted the inspector’s visit to Lush.
But he’s ticked off that the inspector didn’t walk Roscoe Street to see the dozen or so businesses with similar white lights.
“This is an issue in every ward. This comes down to uneven enforcement,” he says. “Instead of making things easier for a restaurant or business, they are constantly making it harder.”
Einhorn says string lights make people feel welcome and make neighborhoods feel safer.
“It enhances the livability of so many neighborhoods,” he says. “We should all be able to do it. It shouldn’t be controversial.”
What he wants is fairness — and for city officials to codify in law what restaurants and bars are already doing.
He asked BACP whether he could apply for a special use permit for the lights but was told there’s no way to apply because no such permit exists.
Einhorn said Ald. Scott Waguespack’s staffer told his brother and business partner, Cliff, that they’d look into the issue. Waguespack’s 32nd Ward includes Roscoe Village’s many sidewalk dining spots on its namesake street.
Waguespack’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), whose ward includes lively outdoor dining areas in Fulton Market, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
An Illinois Restaurant Association spokeswoman said, “We are going to pass on this opportunity [to comment].”
For other sidewalk cafe operators, there doesn’t appear to be any terrible consequences for breaking the no-lights rule.
Einhorn wasn’t fined; he was simply told to take down his lights.
This means most business owners would probably say: Let there be light.
Einhorn says he would, too — if he could.