With more space and fewer tables: this is what the City Council wants the terraces to reopen in Madrid | Madrid

If the capital finally enters phase 1 next Monday, the bars and restaurants will be able to start raising their blinds. Of course, with the door-to-door service and 50% of the capacity. This does not compensate many locals, as the hospitality sector has transferred to the Consistory in the meetings they have held this week. “They themselves say that if they are going to have 50% of the income because they only have part of the terraces, they cannot undertake 100% of the expenses,” Deputy Mayor Begoña Villacís explained on Thursday at a press conference. after the Governing Board. So that the losses in the sector are as few as possible, on Thursday morning the Terrace Commission of the city of Madrid met, which will finally decide on Friday the measures to be adopted.

One of the criteria that the City Council has studied has been to allow the terraces to have a greater surface in a longitudinal way so that they are entitled to more tables and that 50% can be applied on a broader basis. “This does not mean that there will be more clients, there will be fewer because we are talking about 50% of the capacity that would not even reach 100% before,” Villacís has clarified. In addition, he announced that “the criterion is being adopted together with the Mobility area to be able to use parking spaces and have much more space on the terraces.”

The extensions have to be requested by the hoteliers themselves and will not be applied in a general way, but will be studied case by case. The regional government plans to “streamline procedures as much as possible” so that authorizations are ready on Monday or “in the next few days”, according to the deputy mayor, who has assured that the City Council is preparing “a crash plan for those terraces that have it requested today and have not been granted. ” These measures, subject to entry into phase 1, are in addition to those already implemented by the City Council, such as a 25% reduction on the terraces, the application of the decree of the Community of Madrid to extend the hours or the extension of the opening period from October 31 to March 31, 2021.

The proposals that, according to Villacís, have been well received by the hospitality sector, one of the most affected by the crisis, have not been by the residents of the capital. The neighborhood associations of Centro, Chamberí, Retiro and Arganzuela expressed this Wednesday to the Deputy Mayor their rejection of the installation of bar bars on the street, a measure still in the air, and the expansion of the terraces in areas already saturated. Regarding the extension of hours, Villacís promised not to modify them in the Special Acoustic Protection Zones, something that according to these groups should be extended to the entire city. “Security and precaution must be compatible with the economic and commercial reactivation of our neighborhoods, something that we want to occur as soon as possible but with sufficient guarantees,” the entities announced this morning in a statement.

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