Eh, I think it’s a bullshit complaint too - but you can absolutely hear a commercial kitchen in operation a few buildings away if the doors or windows are open on a summer day.

I personally find it quite pleasant - and if not I can just shut my damn window - but many others apparently get super annoyed at even the tiniest of potential inconveniences.

You can argue that but someone might stand up at that zoning review meeting and say well what if they allow outdoor seating in the future. Or what if they throw out takeout trash in my yard. Or what if the customers fill up my trashcan and I can’t put any in myself. Or they are double parking my driveway making it hard for my mother to back out.

At the end of the day, it is going to cause friction something happening somewhere there wasn’t something going on previously. Not saying these people are right or wrong, just that they have grievances that are based on real issues, however big they may be in the grand scheme of things, that they may value more than the prospects of an $8 latte a few minutes sooner than the one already down the road at the strip mall in a sort of containment zone.