While summer terraces are due to make a comeback this Friday, April 1, the Parisian municipality has decided to be much stricter. A few days before the opening of the season, only 1,600 requests had received a favorable opinion. Others should follow.
“As of March 23, 2022, the number of authorizations issued to date amounts to approximately 1,600”, communicated the Parisian municipality on Monday March 28, explaining that the authorization rate was therefore “40%” out of the 4,000 files studied, “i.e. more than one admissible file out of three”.
However, the authorization process does not stop on April 1 since “it is a dynamic process still in progress”, recalls the municipality in a press release. And the task is still difficult, knowing that the services of the city still have 7,000 requests to process out of the 11,000 submitted in 2021 and 2022.
Because these were studied in order: those filed in 2021 until the end of January 2022 have almost all been processed (80%), the others must be studied as they arise, “the deadline of treatment being estimated at two months”, specifies the municipality.
In total, this corresponds to more than 1,300 parking spaces, equivalent to 20,000 m2 of additional terrace area, welcomes the municipality. But beware, this does not distinguish between summer terraces (those authorized from April 1 to October 31) and annual counter-terraces.
Paris Centre, the most endowed arrondissement
Unsurprisingly, it is in Paris Center (which concentrates the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th arrondissements) – where the number of cafes and restaurants is very large – that the number of authorizations was the highest, with 221 terraces granted . Then come the 18th, 17th and 11th arrondissements, with respectively 155, 149 and 142 terraces granted.
It should be noted that certain borough mayors have decided to be particularly attentive this year to avoid the disorders caused by the terraces installed last year, in particular those which had not respected the new Regulations for displays and terraces (RET), those that had overflowed the authorized hours or those whose noise had been a problem.
This is particularly the case of the mayor of the 9th arrondissement, Delphine Bürkli, who on March 10 sent a letter to all restaurateurs specifying the specific rules for summer terraces that they should now respect in her arrondissement.
Among these, “no counter-terrace exceeding the width of the storefronts”, “no counter-terraces off-axis or on the opposite side of the roadway”, “no terraces on the delivery zones (ZDL) in the streets at high commercial density”, and a “treatment” concerning delivery places “on a case-by-case basis”.
Same thing on the side of Paris Center, where the mayor Ariel Weil announced the establishment of stricter regulations in certain streets of his district. Restaurant owners on rue Montorgueil, for example, received a negative response to their request for a summer terrace. Only terraces pre-existing the health crisis, authorized year-round, will therefore be out there this summer.
No terrace without authorization
And for professionals who are waiting for a return? They will have to wait before setting up their terrace. “Only professionals who have had their authorization will be able to install their terraces”, slice the municipality, which confides that mediators of the municipal police “have already started to sensitize the traders”.
Those who try to circumvent the rules, and who will install a terrace without authorization, “will be subject to a verbalization, which may be repeated and lead, in the absence of compliance, to dismantling after formal notice and respect for the contradictory, in collaboration with the borough town halls”, she warns.