Michelle Samenfeld, City Editor

Tutto Pasta Cucina Italiana’s King Street location will not serve customers on its sidewalk café from Sept. 2-11 after the café repeatedly exceeded its licensed sidewalk boundaries.

The Madison City Council suspended a sidewalk café license for the first time Tuesday night in a unanimous vote after the city’s vending oversight committee approved the deal reached with the restaurant last week.

Tutto Pasta will also serve a 30-day suspension if it commits any other zoning violations before April 15.

City Council President Mike Verveer, District 4, said a wheelchair-bound man called police last summer because he could not pass the restaurant because the café crowded the sidewalk. The disciplinary hearing was meant to assess a recommendation for suspension of the restaurant’s sidewalk café license.

“The borders are too long and wide, it’s a total violation of their license,” Verveer said in an interview.

Owner Vincenzo Amodeo said the city was not impartial in its decisions and said Tutto Pasta did not violate its license.

Amodeo said the suspension was a “political move” by the restaurant’s enemies.

“Restaurants on the same street are jealous of our business and would do anything to hurt us,” Amodeo said.

Amodeo said the city was not impartial when it approved the suspension because three citations are needed to suspend a license and Tutto Pasta Cucina Italiana only had acquired two tickets.

Of the six zoning violation citations the city wrote this year, two were issued to Tutto Pasta on King Street and issued two citations for the Tutto Pasta on State Street.

“It’s downright driven by a for-profit motive,” Verveer said. “They should play by the same rules everyone else does.”

Prior to the restaurant receiving the license, the city warned Tutto Pasta about operating the outdoor patio without a license, and since the restaurant received its license, it has been cited for failing to complete an enclosure and restricting the pedestrian right of way.

In other business, the City Council voted without discussion to approve cabaret licenses for two capitol-area bars, The Casbah on East Main Street and The Rainbow Room on West Main Street.

The bars received a recommendation from the Alcohol License Review Committee last month for the cabaret license, which allows patrons to dance in the establishment.