First ruling against Barcelona City Council in the battle to restrict terrace opening hours

BarcelonaThe restriction of opening hours on terraces threatens to choke the Barcelona City Council. If in November 2023 it had to do reverse and to annul the measure around George Orwell Square and Joaquim Costa Street due to procedural defects, has now received the first contrary ruling. The city's 12th administrative court has ruled in favor of the Restaurant Guild and has overturned the reduction in hours on the terraces in Plaza del Sol, in the Gràcia neighborhood.

As has been announced The Newspaper and the ARA has confirmed, the judicial resolution considers that the acoustic impact assessment report with which the City Council justified the measure is not valid. The reason? It considers that the sound level meter was not placed correctly –close enough to the facades of the houses– to determine whether the neighbours suffer a noise limit higher than that permitted and whether this was caused by the terraces.

The Barcelona City Council maintains that the sound level measurements were carried out "correctly and in accordance with current regulations". Municipal sources also point out that when the tests were carried out, it was confirmed that "both the maximum permitted limit values and the number of days that these values can be exceeded" were exceeded.

For this reason, the council has already appealed against the sentence, which was notified to the parties at the beginning of February. In this way, the time restriction on the terraces will continue in force in the Plaça del Sol until the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) makes a decision. Municipal sources stress that compliance with the measure will continue to be ensured while it is in force.

The time restriction on the terraces in the Plaza del Sol is approved in October 2022. The regulations mean that restaurants must close their outdoor tables one hour earlier – at 11pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends – between April and October. The rest of the year, this restriction only applies on weekends and the eve of public holidays. As compensation, the City Council allows restaurants in the square to have two more tables outside from 8pm.

Other pending cases

Now it remains to be seen whether the ruling on the Plaza del Sol is an isolated case or opens the way for an avalanche of judicial decisions against the City Council. On the court table are appeals filed by the Restaurant Guild also due to the time restrictions in Enrique Granados, in the Plaza de la Revolución and Plaza de la Virreina, in the Jardines del Mediterráneo, in the Triángulo Lúdico del Poblenou and on Calle Tuset.

In the case of Ciutat Vella, at the end of 2023 the City Council repealed the decrees that restricted the opening hours of terraces, food sales establishments and restaurants and music bars around Plaza George Orwell and Calle Joaquim Costa. It did so because during the administrative dispute some of those affected detected procedural defects that prevented its legal application, such as having exceeded the maximum processing period or the accumulation of notification defects that invalidated its validity.