The next time you venture into a restaurant in Aurora and aren’t greeted by a tall glass of icy water upon sitting down, don’t overturn the table or rip up the check in anger.
Just ask for one.
This week, the Aurora City Council passed a resolution encouraging restaurants in the city to “save water by serving water upon customer request,” rather than as a de facto courtesy. Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock, who sponsored the measure, concedes that comparatively little water will be conserved through such a move.
But by altering the process behind something as habitual as visiting an eatery, she said, the voluntary restriction could have an outsized impact on people’s attitudes toward saving water.
“Small, visible actions help remind everyone that water is precious and that conservation is a shared responsibility,” she said. “When people notice these habits in public, they’re more likely to carry mindful use into their homes and businesses.”
Climate change is warming and drying Colorado and the Western U.S., which recently emerged from a super-drought that stretched from 2020 to 2022. Historically, such a dry period happened less than once every 1,000 years. But according to research published last year, that level of dessication could occur once every six years by the end of the century if emissions from human activity aren’t curbed.
Aurora’s resolution, passed Monday as one of the last actions taken by the current council before several newly elected members are sworn in, will be voluntary during “normal water availability conditions,” as is the case now.
The recommendation becomes mandatory when the city enters drought conditions.
“Restaurants already juggle tight margins and lots of rules, so we wanted a way to support conservation without adding extra pressure,” Hancock said. “By recommending rather than requiring it, we encourage collaboration. It still raises awareness but lets each restaurant adapt it in a way that fits their operations. Over time, as customers get used to asking for water, most places find it becomes the norm naturally.”
That’s an approach lauded by the Colorado Restaurant Association, which represents an industry that has suffered numerous closures in the wake of the pandemic.
“We appreciate that Aurora City Council didn’t make this measure a mandate for local businesses, since not every restaurant operates under the same model and customers dine out with individual expectations and needs,” said Denise Mickelsen, a spokeswoman for the trade group. “The restaurants that comply with this order will need to educate their customers and realign expectations for water service.”
Aurora’s move isn’t unique. A decade ago, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown urged restaurants to refrain from serving unrequested glasses of water as part of an executive order that aimed to slash water use in the state by 25%. Hawaii’s Oahu, the island that’s home to state capital Honolulu, has barred the practices of providing automatic glasses of water in restaurants since 1992.
In Colorado, restaurants in Steamboat Springs stopped serving automatic glasses of water during a severe statewide drought in 2002. In mid-August, Frisco mandated that restaurants in town do so when the flow in North Ten Mile Creek slowed dramatically.
The requirement was lifted last month after creek flows returned to healthier levels.
“We want water users to be intentional and think about whether someone will actually drink the water set down in front of them, or if it will just be poured down the drain eventually,” Frisco Water Superintendent Ryan Thompson said.
Servers, he said, may feel hesitant about not “automatically plunking water down in front of a customer” for fear of receiving a reduced tip. But he said the town wants to be a part of “reframing good service as only getting the water that you asked for.”
Some restaurants in Denver and elsewhere have shifted on their own, adopting the by-request practice.
Shonnie Cline, a spokeswoman with Aurora Water, said Aurora’s restrictions on water service at restaurants become mandatory when the city is in one of three stages of drought, which means the amount of available water in storage dips below 100,000 acre-feet.
The city has the capacity to store 156,000 acre-feet of water across its multiple reservoirs during normal times, Cline said. But a dry winter and a meager snowpack can change all that — the city last imposed drought restrictions in 2023.
Then, small measures like curtailing water service at restaurants become one of the more visible tools in the larger effort to conserve water.
“Making a message stick with people who are hit with a thousand messages is important,” she said. “To get people thinking about how every single drop needs to be counted — the littlest things do matter in the long run.”
Cline said she hoped to never see Aurora reach Stage 3 drought conditions — the most severe designation for the city of 400,000 — which would happen if storage began to dip below 65,000 acre-feet. That’s when all water consumption in the city would be restricted to indoor use only.
“God help us if we get to Stage 3,” she said. “At that point, we have reached all things catastrophic.”
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