Dehors of bars and restaurants, 42% of venues invested 700 million

"Between 2020 and 2023, 42% of public establishments will have invested in setting up or modernising the dehors of their premises, to the tune of EUR 700 million. We are talking about 110 thousand businesses that have acted to meet the new consumption needs of customers while respecting the public interest in safety and urban decorum". This was affirmed by the Director General of Fipe-Confcommercio, Luciano Sbraga, speaking before the 10th Commission of the Chamber of Deputies in the context of the examination of the proposed law "1486 Caramanna" on dehors.
"The proposed law goes in the direction that the Federation has long been hoping for - he continued - and has the merit not only of consecrating the extraordinary value that the presence of dehors connected to restaurants and cafés has assumed in Italian cities, but also the willingness to bring the Superintendencies and Municipalities into greater connection, allowing for a better valorisation of the spaces on which outdoor catering can be structured".

But in the recent past on dehors there has been no shortage of controversy, first and foremost regarding 'movida without rules' in tourist municipalities and important administrations such as Rome and Milan. Simplifications and the cancellation of the public land occupation tax introduced during the Covid period to allow drinking and eating in the open air to limit the possibility of contagion have been extended until December 2024. But there are those who advocate making these measures structural, compatible with clear rules and with respect for the usability of public spaces; and those who instead argue that the concessions (which were meant to be emergency and transitory) have too often turned into a detriment to urban decorum, liveability and the accessibility of squares and pavements. Not to mention the issue of taxes on the occupation of public land and premises with more indoor space that have seen increased competition from those who have been able to exploit open-air tables.

"We are drafting, within the competition bill,a measure to make outdoor tables, dehors, structural, so that they are also an element of urban decorum. We are discussing this measure with the sectoral associations and of course also with Anci, so with the municipalities. We think that it could be an opportunity to make catering even more functional to sociability and to that urban decorum that is increasingly being affirmed in historic city centres,' said the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso during the presentation of the Catering Day 2024.

This is why Codacons has submitted a formal notice. "The government wants to make structural a measure that has caused only chaos and degradation. Dehors, beach umbrellas, platforms, tables and chairs installed on streets and squares - said Carlo Rienzi, Codacons president - cause enormous damage to citizens, who are deprived of public spaces and forced to walk slaloming between the structures placed by bars and restaurants. A chaos that also damages urban decorum and tourism, ruining the image of our cities in the eyes of foreign visitors. Not to mention unlawfulness and the absence of controls, which often leads to the occupation of more public space than allowed by local regulations'.

The bill envisages a delegation of powers to the Government to 'harmonise and standardise the provisions set forth in the Code of Cultural and Landscape Heritage, pursuant to Legislative Decree 22 January 2004, no. 42 of 22 January 2004, with the regulations on the granting of concessions of public spaces and areas of cultural or landscape interest to public enterprises by the municipalities' and 'to provide for an organic, effective and coherent regulation of the matter, reconciling the protection of cultural heritage and landscape interest with the territorial government objectives of local authorities and with the economic and investment planning objectives of enterprises, without prejudice to the protection of security, public order and urban decorum'.