Downtown bar owners may have to wait a little longer before they find out whether they can have sidewalk seating areas.

Business owners were told at a meeting Friday that design guidelines for sidewalk seating won’t be presented to city commissioners for at least two more weeks. Those design guidelines don’t include whether bars – instead of just restaurants – should be allowed to have the seating areas.

But city commissioners have said they want to finalize new design guidelines before considering changes to the sidewalk dining policy that would eliminate the requirement that businesses must have 70 percent of their sales from food to qualify for sidewalk seating.

Several downtown bar owners said they hope the process moves quickly because the areas are needed to help cope with the city’s ban on indoor smoking.

“Our problem is we just don’t have any place to put our customers who smoke,” said Nick Carroll, an owner of the Jackpot Saloon & Music Hall, 943 Mass.

Previously, city commissioners had expressed some support for allowing bars to have the seating areas, which would allow people to not only smoke outside but also take an alcoholic beverage onto the sidewalk seating area.

But there has been some opposition from city commissioners. City Commissioner David Schauner has argued that bars should not be allowed to have the seating areas because it would change the atmosphere of downtown. Mayor Boog Highberger, though, said he still supports the change but did not have a timeline for bringing the issue to a vote.

Jerry Neverve, an owner of the Red Lyon Tavern, 944 Mass., said he hoped commissioners would see the need for the areas.

“The people are already out there smoking,” Neverve said. “This would just give us a chance to police them better, clean our area better by containing them,” Neverve said.

Friday’s meeting, hosted by the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Department, mainly focused on recommended design guidelines for sidewalk dining areas.

The guidelines, which need final approval from the City Commission, would prohibit umbrellas and outdoor heaters. Neverve said he opposed both of those prohibitions.

“We’re just trying to make our customers comfortable,” Neverve said. “We’re in the hospitality business.”

Other regulations in the design guidelines include a prohibition on bolting the sidewalk railings to a building, a requirement that railings be 36 inches high, and a requirement that the areas be washed in a way that dirty water does not drain into the city’s storm sewers.

City commissioners have previously expressed concerns about the stormwater requirement because it could mean that owners would not be allowed to wash their sidewalks with a simple garden hose.

But planning staff members said the requirement was still in the proposed regulations because it helped the city meet federal requirements dealing with stormwater quality.