Freshmen council members Jennifer Kim and Lee Leffingwell announced their proposal to change the city's restaurant code at a press conference on Friday. It would give restaurants the option to allow dogs on patios.

The city council will consider the amendment at next week's council meeting. Kim said it's partly a response to restaurants that were taking extreme measures to let dogs in.

"The state has its own health code and the city just adopted that wholesale, and one of the provisions is they only make exception for seeing eye dogs. And actually, I hear that one of the restaurants [Freddie’s in South Austin] is having to deputize dogs as guides to allow them on the patio. Instead of requiring people to do that, we are amending it to allow dogs on patios in Austin," Kim said.

Kim and Leffingwell made the announcement at Opal Divine's restaurant, which has been drumming up support for the amendment among its clientele. The staff has already gathered more than 800 signatures in just two months.

The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that nearly 100,000 households in Austin have dogs.