General description of the image of the Front Yard on the Little Square. Photo: JP
The capacity of restaurant gardens in the center of Prague will no longer be able to exceed the number of seats in the restaurant, and the furthest corner of the garden will have to be a maximum of 50 meters from the entrance to the restaurant. Owners of businesses with an entrance directly onto the sidewalk will get priority for garden permits. Contracts with applicants will be valid for a period of three years. The city councilors approved the rules for placing restaurant front gardens in the conservation area today. According to the rules, the municipal companies Technical Communications Administration (TSK) and Trade Center Praha (TCP) must follow the rules. Councilors on Monday also refused to forgive the debt of restaurateurs who used unauthorized public space for gardens.
The rules contain several basic principles. The capacity of the restaurant garden, for example, will not be able to have a higher capacity than the approved internal capacity of the establishment. If the establishment does not have hygienic facilities, it will not be able to have a restaurant garden, with the exception of the so-called day garden, which is two tables, each with two chairs.
These principles reflect the effort to ensure that restaurant gardens complement indoor establishments, and not replace them. It will also be possible to place restaurant gardens within a maximum distance of 50 meters from the entrance to the establishment.
“The restaurant garden should ideally be right in front of the facade of the building in which the establishment is located. However, there are situations when this is not the case, or when there are several establishments that could apply for the lease of the public space. Until now, it was not clear how the city decides to whom the area in the middle of the square, for example, will be leased for the purpose of operating a restaurant garden, which could raise some doubts about preferential access to some operators. I believe that entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry will welcome that the city’s decision-making in this matter will now be more transparent and predictable,” said councilor for property, transparency and legislation Adam Zábranský (Pirates).
In the event that several operators have the priority right to place a garden on one area, the area will be leased to them according to their mutual agreement, possibly divided equally or leased according to the result of the tendering process to the highest price for a period of three years.
In addition to the previously approved Manual for Cultivated Prague, which deals with the form of gardens, and the Concept for the location of restaurant gardens on Královská cesta, Hradební korz and Wenceslas Square, which defines the places where gardens can be, there is now also a document that gives the procedure for deciding on requests for specific businesses about the location of the restaurant garden.
On Monday, councilors refused to forgive the debts of some restaurateurs who used the space for gardens without authorization. In the past, the city gave them notice of the lease after they refused to sign amendments to the leases to adjust the size of the garden.
At the beginning of last September, the municipality sent them calls to pay for the actual use of the land and contractual fines for not clearing it. The restaurateurs unsuccessfully sued the city. Some companies owe the city amounts approaching ten million crowns, one of them more than 13 million.
