Lyle Thorsen of Rocky View Brewing in downtown Cochrane is all in favour of the Alberta government’s recent move to remove red tape for restaurant and bar owners who want to open their patios to pooches.
It just would have been good if they’d done it a little sooner.
“We’d just gone through the approval process ourselves,” he said.
The province announced the change in a release on May 26, which stated “restaurants, bars and coffee shops can now welcome customers’ dogs on their patios,” and they could do so without approval from Alberta Health Services.
“Effective immediately, Alberta eateries no longer need approval from a public health inspector to allow pooches on patios,” the release reads.
The government release advises that establishments are not required to offer dog-friendly patios, so patrons should check restaurants’ policies ahead of their visit.
Thorsen didn’t expect a large number of clients with dogs when reached on a sunny afternoon last Friday, since it was grad day around Cochrane, but he said his patio would normally be well represented by customers with canines.
“It’s been good – people are really enjoying it,” he said.
“We’re definitely in favour of it. It’s a fun thing to do, especially with our location, with our customer base, we wanted to have that option.”
Thorsen said the brewery had plans to go ahead and apply through AHS to be dog-friendly even with all the paperwork involved, but he said the recent rule change is much better, as every piece of government red tape a restaurant owner has to deal with costs time and money.
“Whatever they can do to make it easier to do business, we’re all for that, for sure,” he said.
Keeping customers happy is profitable for Thorsen, and on a recent sunny Saturday, his microbrewery/pub had so many people enjoying the patio with their dogs that they ran out of his locally brewed product.
“Yeah, we were all tapped out, with all the tables with people with dogs,” he said, adding there’s a lot of dogs in Cochrane.
“Someone told me there’s almost as many dogs in Cochrane as people, so you know there’s a lot of dog lovers,” he said.
He counts himself among that group, and now he can bring his dog to work, if he so chooses.
“Yes, as long as he’s working on the patio,” he quipped.
