Wwill there be another lockdown in autumn? World Medical Director Frank Ulrich Montgomery has recently called for an anti-corona plan including an option for an officially ordered closure of hotels and restaurants, for example, in a newly drafted infection protection law. It is unclear whether politics will follow this and whether doors will actually have to remain closed again in a few months. On the other hand, it is very likely that restaurant guests will like to sit outside, like now in summer, even when it is cold again: because the trend of wanting to eat and drink outdoors at any time of the year is already a few years old, and also because They want to protect themselves from infection with the coronavirus.
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Jacqueline Vogt
Department head of the Rhein-Main editorial team of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
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One wish requires the other business model, says Robert Mangold, Vice President of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) in Hesse and Chairman of Dehoga Frankfurt. “Locals only have a chance if they can serve their guests outside during the months when the risk of infection is high,” he says. And: “The city is oriented completely wrong here, as with the party zones.” The background: Since 2020, the operators of restaurants and cafés in Frankfurt, who have a so-called special use permit for seating in a public area, have been able to use their outdoor area easily and over extend the previously valid level. With this, the city had reacted to the distance regulations in force during the peak phase of the pandemic and wanted to support the catering trade. This is limited to October 31; Dehoga and the Frankfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) are calling for an extension. On Wednesday, IHK President Ulrich Caspar called for existing decisions to be valid for “several years”.
“The industry is under pressure and we have to pass it on”
Instead of allowing bratwurst stalls there, as in the attempt to lure party people from Friedberger Platz to Hauptwache, those responsible in the city council should rather continue to strengthen traditional gastronomy, says Robert Mangold. After two and a half years of the Corona crisis, the industry is still under attack. Anyone who goes out can see and feel this: because many companies have reduced their offer and also because prices have increased – Mangold speaks of an average of 20 percent. “The industry is under pressure and we have to pass it on.”
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In the most recent economic survey on the tourism industry by the IHK Frankfurt, a majority of companies in the hospitality industry in Frankfurt and the Hochtaunus and Main-Taunus districts described their business situation as problematic and the greatest risk for further economic development was the rising prices for energy, food and called raw materials. “Far from real relaxation after the corona pandemic” is all that, IHK boss Caspar commented.
“But those responsible in the city obviously have the feeling that Corona is over,” says Mangold. At the moment, there is no evidence that the Roman coalition and the various departments involved in the subject are taking action to strengthen gastronomy, the hotel industry and tourism. For example, the city needs a congress funding pot in addition to the funds that are available to the specialist department in the city’s tourism and congress company, says the restaurateur. The industry is now hoping for a return to trade fair business. At the leading trade fair for the meat industry in mid-May, hotels with up to 80 rooms were well booked, after all. Large hotels, on the other hand, currently have “a maximum of 50 percent of what they used to have for sure”.
There should be a reorientation
The CDU in the Römer has announced that it will follow Dehoga and the IHK on the subject of outdoor gastronomy. Group leader Nils Kößler speaks of a “fundamental realignment” and that the CDU “wants to open a new chapter in the Frankfurt rules for this trade”. Bars, cafés and restaurants should be permanently allocated larger areas on streets and squares. This should apply regardless of exception rules and go beyond the requirement to issue special use permits for several years. The CDU will bring an application to the political process. According to Kößler, the magistrate must formulate a concept with which existing unequal treatment should be avoided in the future; In the pandemic, there was “unfair chaos” at times.
Whether and how the conflicts between hosts and their guests and those who feel disturbed by them can be contained with a new concept remains to be seen. In any case, the CDU in the local advisory board 3 demands that bars in the north end close their outdoor terraces at 11 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday, and on Fridays and Saturdays they should be allowed to stay open until midnight. Approval for this would have to be renewed every year.
