The judicial war surrounding the terraces of Barcelona is intensifying. Now at least a couple of rulings question the removal of terraces installed during the pandemic in the Ciutat Vella district dictated by the municipal government then led by Ada Colau.
The administrative contentious courts number 9 and 15 of Barcelona find the restaurateurs of the neighborhoods of Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera and Barceloneta in their right and overturn the withdrawal brought by the City Council of the terraces to mitigate the economic consequences of the covid The sentence of the 9th is not yet final, but the one of the 15th is. In addition, the two court decisions open the door to many other restaurateurs making similar claims, in the Ciutat Vella district and in the rest of Barcelona.
In the first case, the judge considers that the municipal procedure left the restaurateur in a helpless situation, that the City Council had to provide concrete and specific reasons, and not refer so generically to the protection of the public interest. In the second case, the magistrate focuses on the errors of the municipal administrative process, but also objects to the ambiguous criteria used by the Consistory.
These restaurateurs complained that the City Council systematically rejected all the requests that had been made in this part of the city, which in a generic way simply replied that these terraces were no longer suitable for living together, and that this contravened the ‘municipal ordinance prepared to regularize the terraces installed on the roads during the pandemic. And the local administration, for its part, responded that it is empowered to act in a discretionary way, to do what it sees fit, with the aim of protecting citizen coexistence in public space.
According to municipal data, Barcelona City Council granted 3,668 extraordinary terraces during the pandemic. The restaurateurs requested the consolidation of 2,899 terraces. They got 1,131, 574 on the road and 557 on the sidewalk. Of the total, 474 are new and 657 are extensions. All together there are 5,528 tables and 21,536 chairs. Up to 1,435 requests were denied.
“Discretion is one thing, and arbitrariness is another,” explains Eudald Lligoña, the lawyer for these two restaurateurs. Those administered have the right to know the reasons for the administration. Barcelona City Council acted in a similar way in dozens of cases. With these rulings, hundreds of restaurateurs now have the opportunity to recover the terraces. The Consistory acted in this way especially in the Ciutat Vella district, but also in the rest of Barcelona”.
The Barcelona Restoration Guild reported several times that the City Council rejected most of the requests for consolidation of the covid terraces in Ciutat Vella. The government of Ada Colau always replied that it was acting with the aim of guaranteeing neighborhood rest, that a large part of the streets and squares of this district are saturated.
It is not precisely the first judicial setback suffered by the municipal procedure regarding this matter. In recent months, at least six rulings have rejected restrictions imposed by Barcelona City Council in the Ciutat Vella district during Mayoress Colau’s first term. Then the local executive launched about 30 files aimed at eliminating or reducing terraces. The latest resolutions on these files do not imply an automatic restitution of these terraces, but open new battle fronts.
In addition, also recently, the government presided over by the socialist mayor Jaume Collboni withdrew a series of restrictions imposed on the Raval and the Gòtic in the previous term after detecting some form errors that, he assured at the time, clearly portended that the ‘City Council would lose the lawsuit filed by the Restoration Association.
