Outdoor gastronomy also in winter

Created: 05/16/2022, 15:49

By: Ulrike Osman

Outdoor gastronomy also in winter?

If the restaurateurs take over the winter service on the affected areas themselves and keep the furniture in good condition, the city provides an exception.

© Greiner

Landsberg – How expensive will outdoor seating be for downtown restaurateurs in Landsberg in the future?

The administration would like to increase the special usage fee due for this by 50 percent.

There were already strong dissenting voices in the building committee.

The current "Statute on special uses of public roads, paths and squares" dates back to 2010. Now a new version is to be adopted, which was recently presented to the building committee for the first preliminary consultation.

There, the fee proposal in the draft statutes was not well received, at least by some - even if the head of the regulatory office, Ernst Müller, argued that there had been no fee increase since 2010.

The 50 percent increase must therefore be converted to this period, which corresponds to about four percent a year.

If you then take into account that the new fee will be stable again for ten years, you end up with an annual increase of two percent.

"It's not that dramatic," said Müller.

In absolute figures, this means in concrete terms: So far, restaurateurs have paid one euro per month for every square meter or part thereof and another euro for each guest seat for their outdoor hospitality areas.

In the future, according to the draft statutes, it would be EUR 1.50 each.

"I am absolutely against it," said Petra Kohler-Ettner (CSU) on this proposal.

The restaurateurs suffered two years of business losses due to Corona and are now struggling with the generally rising prices.

No one was able to make provisions for this "utopian" 50 percent.

Markus Salzinger (UBV) agreed with Kohler-Ettner.

Now is "the stupidest time" for such an increase.

The fees should now first be discussed in the parliamentary groups and finally come back to the agenda at the next building committee meeting.

Blocked parking spaces

Another point flew straight out of the draft statute.

Here, too, it was about money - namely whether restaurateurs should pay in future if car parking spaces are blocked by their respective outdoor catering area.

This regulation would only have affected the restaurants in Schlossergasse, Vorderanger and Hinteranger.

Apparently nobody on the committee liked that – there was no objection to the deletion of the paragraph.

In the future, outdoor hospitality should only be permitted between April 1st and October 31st.

However, the draft statute provides for an exception.

According to this, outdoor gastronomy would also be possible in the winter months - but not during the time of the Christmas market or city Christmas.

Because then you should eat and drink at the market stalls.

It is important for the winter outdoor catering that the restaurateurs should be responsible for the winter service on their outdoor catering areas themselves in the future and that the furniture should be kept in a condition “that enables the catering to be started immediately”, as the draft statute says.

Leaves and snow should be removed regularly.

This is to ensure that the outdoor area does not degenerate into a chair store.