The town hall of Strasbourg intends to restore order on the terraces of the cafes of the city center. Despite what the decor of Strasbourg’s pedestrian streets might suggest in the morning, the cafés and tea rooms have no no right to install a terrace in the street before 11 a.m..
This municipal regulation of 1951 has not been applied for decades. But for the past few weeks, the municipality has been sweeping away this status quo by multiplying checks in the streets of the hyper-centre, arguing that the influence of the terraces hinders the circulation of delivery vehicles. A “consultation” between associations of residents, representatives of cafeterias and city services is underway to overhaul the rules and enforce the ban.
“A sledgehammer”
For ten years, the Suzanne tea room located rue du 22-Novembre has been welcoming its customers on the terrace from 8am. But Wednesday, May 25, following a complaint from a resident, the municipal police comes to remind the rules to Samuel Alizadeh, the owner’s son. An ominous call to order. “It’s a blow. Our economic model is based on this clientele, that of the morning. If we are banned from our morning terrace, it will be very problematic, we risk losing a quarter of our turnover. daily, and this could lead to dismissal”, the cafe owner is alarmed.
Like several colleagues from the rue du 22-Novembre, he denounces in a joint letter a “incomprehensible approach” of the town hall, provides for “dramatic consequences on our companies and even beyond, on the attractiveness and the animation of our city center, and claim to “maintain the opening (sic) of our terraces at 7 a.m. as has been the practice since such a distant age that no one remembers it (sic)”.
Despite the bronca, the cafe owners of the rue du 22-Novembre say to themselves “open to dialogue”. Christophe Weber, the director of the Union of hotel trades and industries (Umih) in Bas-Rhin represents them within the “consultation” initiated by the municipality. “As a sign of goodwill, we have asked our members to reduce the size of their terrace as much as possible. We have to find a fair compromise”, he assures. Since the first municipal police raid, Suzanne, Riss and Secrets de Table have reduced their morning terraces by one row.
A new regulation in 2023
The deputy mayor in charge of shared public spaces on the roads of fairs and markets, Pierre Ozenne is at the maneuver on the side of the municipality and intends reform the rules for setting up café terraces. The elected official has already set the objectives of this future order: “For us, it will be a question of defining, in all the pedestrian streets, the places where we can have enough space for deliveries and, depending on what is necessary, defining the relict rights of way in which we could install the terraces. At that time we will define morning dimensions. Today they are not authorized, but tomorrow we will allow them to have a space to be able to trade, which will necessarily be of a different size. Today, all the tearooms and cafeterias have an interior. We must also find a balance between the exterior use of the city, whose primary function remains service, and the interior space already available to us. these establishments.
Waiting for a municipal decree during 2023, a first temporary framework governing the installation of morning terraces in Strasbourg will see the light of day at the beginning of June. Until then, the town hall assures her, she will show “pragmatism, not dogmatism” by not verbalizing the café owners.