Getir, one of the players in quick commerce established in France.
A decree and an order are in the pipeline to disambiguate dark stores. They aim to give back tools to mayors so that they are able to ban them purely and simply in their municipality, or on the contrary welcome them in the best conditions.
Some elected officials are already gnashing their teeth. Emmanuel Grégoire, First Deputy Mayor of Paris, responsible in particular for town planning, does not hide his concern. Last weekend he revealed on Twitter a draft order from the DHUP which, according to him, “de facto legalizes dark stores”. For the government, the goal is not to encourage the establishment of dark stores, but to put things straight and in a dispassionate way.
Dark stores dedicated to quick commerce have sprung up in city centers thanks to the health crisis. If the subject is mainly Parisian (there are nearly sixty in the capital), we note that half of the dark stores that open take the place of old shops.
Second round of consultations at the start of the school year
To date, the discussions are far from over. Consultations have started and a second round should continue at the start of the school year to define a framework of activity for these new kind of warehouses. If their “opacity” frightens elected officials, the future decree could, for example, decide to give a dark store the possibility of “de-opacity” of its window to let the public in, and thus become a “commerce” almost like the others.
Ultimately, it will be up to local elected officials to decide on the issue, argues the government. They already have two means of action at their disposal: either, go through the Local Urban Plan (PLU) to limit the establishment of dark stores in their municipality, or intervene when the destination of a premises changes.
The challenge of this legal project is therefore to clarify the difference between a warehouse and a retail, to clearly identify dark store activity.