Nine members, mostly newcomers to government, tackled a wide-ranging agenda at their first meeting Friday, Feb. 26. After introductions, Mayor and Co-Chairman Rick Solloway said Dewey’s smaller businesses are in trouble.

While staples like The Lighthouse Cove, the Rusty Rudder and The Starboard have dedicated patrons, other restaurants are struggling. Solloway said two Dewey eateries, Scully’s Café and The Salad Factory, are listed as for sale. A third Solloway declined to name is considering folding.

“Something is causing these restaurants to not do very well for the past two years,” Solloway said. Stephanie Przygocki, manager of Bethany Blues in Lewes and wife of Commissioner Zeke Przygocki, suggested promoting restaurants with the chamber of commerce’s family movie night – a kind of a dinner-and-a-movie arrangement that would harness the influx of families on Tuesday nights.

Member and resident Sally Read suggested a progressive dinner – a group of diners would move from restaurant to restaurant, getting acquainted with the menus and ambiance of each. Jim Dedes, who also serves on the planning and zoning commission, pitched a food festival in which each eatery would bring dishes to a central location and set up booths.

Starboard owner Steve Montgomery said the problem isn’t getting people to come to Dewey – it’s finding someplace to put their cars.

“It all goes back to parking,” Montgomery said. Dewey has long wrestled with parking; the planning and zoning commission has been working on an ordinance for more than a year.

Commissioner and committee Co-Chairwoman Diane Hanson said she would ask council to suspend the need for parking permits and meter fees on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but the commissioners tabled that motion the following day, when Town Manager Diana Smith said she needed to investigate how much it would cost to re-label the meters.

Dedes said the town receives more negative feedback from weekend noise than from a lack of parking.

The issue of loud bar crowds consistently draws strong opinions from Dewey property owners, many of whom packed noise committee meetings last year to complain about late-night revelry.

Dedes said The Starboard sets the example in regulating noise – if the bar is getting too loud, he said, managers deal with it before it becomes a problem. Two Seas Restaurant owner Jill Carr said enhanced enforcement could keep the decibels down, but Smith was quick to tell the committee that better enforcement means hiring more police officers.

“If you want a higher level of law enforcement in this town, you need to understand it’s going to take more people,” she said. Solloway suggested assigning seasonal officers specific streets. Residents would get to know their officer, he said, fostering trust and communication.

As Solloway and Hanson created subcommittees to deal with parking, beautification, public image and advertisement, committee members agreed the town couldn’t effectively sell itself without an expanded internet presence. Smith said she can find plenty of information about Rehoboth Beach restaurants online; for Dewey restaurants, she finds almost nothing.

But if any group were assigned the expansive and multi-faceted task of marketing Dewey Beach, Smith said she’s glad it’s this one.

“I couldn’t pay for some of the minds we have around us right now,” she said.