A new state law granting pandemic-era outdoor dining permission to restaurants and other food establishments in perpetuity is, on one hand, a long time coming. On the other hand, the blanket permission it grants isn’t necessarily one size fits all.

“I guess there are a lot of little towns with 15-mph speed limits and big sidewalks. We don’t have that,” Ship Bottom Mayor William Huelsenbeck said the afternoon of Dec. 2, one week after Gov.