The municipal inspection visits more than 500 hospitality establishments in Benidorm for the campaign to regularize chairs and tables

Benidorm City Council has visited more than 500 hospitality establishments in the city as part of the information campaign that began at the end of last September to regularize the situation of these businesses and restore normality in the installation of chairs and tables in the public roads, after the lifting of all the restrictions that were once implemented due to the pandemic. This was announced this Wednesday by the Councilor for Commerce and Municipal Inspection, Javier Jordá, who highlighted that, in addition to the information that has been sent to all establishments, municipal inspectors are also visiting them personally to inform them about the conditions established by Municipal Ordinance Number 2 on Uses of Public Use Areas, as well as Fiscal Ordinance number 20 regulating the Rate for Private Use or Special Use of the Local Public Domain.

The councilor explained that this campaign, which has the support of the ABRECA Association of Bars and Restaurants, will be until the end of this year and invited establishments to regularize their situation in the shortest possible time. Likewise, Jordá also recalled that next November the deadline begins for bars, restaurants, and cafes with chairs on public roads to submit the documentation to renew their licenses until 2024, as established by the ordinances.

A little more than 15 days after this campaign began, the information managed by the municipal Commerce department reflects that there is already a high number of hoteliers who have completed all the procedures. According to Javier Jordá, this figure amounts to nearly 250 establishments, of which just over 170 submitted all the procedures even before the City Council reported its decision to reactivate the municipal and fiscal ordinances on this matter, while the rest have submitted the applications in these last two weeks.

This return to normality implies several things. On the one hand, recover the number of tables and chairs authorized in the years before the pandemic, without the extensions that were temporarily allowed to help businesses alleviate the losses caused by the restrictions and closure of the hospitality industry due to COVID-19. Likewise, the rest of the conditions established in Ordinance Number 2 will also include the space where chairs and tables are authorized and where it is not. Javier Jordá explained that, as a result of this last measure, there are already almost fifty establishments in areas such as Paseo de Levante, Jaime I, or Mediterráneo Avenue that do not have tables in the street since last Sunday, when the measures began to be implemented.

Do not harm the hospitality

As he already did during the presentation of this campaign, Javier Jordá recalled that October 15 was chosen as the date for the return to normality due to the "will of the local government to wait until the summer season was over and the long weekends of October 9 and Hispanidad, dates that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors, so as not to harm hoteliers at the best time of the year." Likewise, the councillor recalled that this decision comes "after a high season that according to the indicators, has been very positive in economic terms for our city", to which is added the fact that “We are at a time when all the restrictions derived from the pandemic have disappeared and it did not make sense to continue prolonging these extraordinary measures that we adopted in March 2020 for any longer.”

Until that date, the number of establishments authorized by Benidorm City Council to place nightstands as established by municipal ordinances amounted to 391 cafeterias, bars, and restaurants, with about 2,000 tables on public roads.