Curfew
The time at which restaurants have to stop operating is called curfew or police hour . This regulation should serve to ensure the night's rest . After the curfew, no more serving is allowed. Often, shortly before curfew, you are asked to place your last order. Nowadays it only applies to a limited extent in many places or has been completely abolished.
history
The introduction of curfew is a measure that was gradually implemented in cities at the turn of the late Middle Ages to the early modern period for regulatory and fire protection reasons. Early evidence of this comes mainly from the area of the Austrian hereditary lands . In 1470, for example, Duke Sigmund IV of Austria-Tyrol issued the so-called Hausaus , the ban on nocturnal wine serving "after the wine logken or hosaus", in a municipal fire order for Bozen .
Germany
In the federal states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin, Bavaria, Hamburg and Hesse, only one legally prescribed curfew from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. has been in effect since 2010, which is also known as the cleaning hour referred to as. In Baden-Württemberg there is a legal curfew from 3:00 am to 6:00 am (Saturday and Sunday 5:00 am to 6:00 am), in Bremen from 2:00 am to 6:00 am. There is no statutory curfew in the federal states of Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia. In general, the curfew in Germany no longer differentiates between weekdays since 2010; the same restrictions apply from Monday to Friday as on weekends. Exceptions are Bremen, Hamburg and Rhineland-Palatinate, on which there is curfew from Monday to Friday, but not on weekends.
Motorway service stations and restaurants at airports, train stations and passenger ports are generally exempt from curfew, but are not allowed to dispense alcoholic beverages between midnight and 7:00 a.m.
In many other cities such as B. Berlin and Hamburg there is no general curfew or cleaning hour. In cities where there is no general curfew, the public order offices can still impose conditions on how long a bar can be open. In this context, there are also special provisions for outdoor catering: In order to ensure the night's rest of the residents, outdoor seating in front of restaurants or in connected beer gardens may often only be used up to a certain time, usually guests are then asked to go inside the restaurant move to where operations will continue.
Switzerland
In Switzerland, the regulation of police hours is the responsibility of the cantons . A distinction is usually made between normal restaurants and night clubs. The majority of cantons and cities are currently sticking to curfew in the public interest of the night's rest. Basel-Stadt reintroduced the police hour in 2005, but allows exceptions. The reintroduction took place due to many noise complaints.
In the city and canton of Zurich, with the liberalization of the Hospitality Act in 1997, the police hour was repealed. Catering establishments in Zurich have a legal right to permanent authorization for opening times between midnight and five o'clock. If the night's sleep or public order are disturbed, the permit for this period can be withdrawn from the companies. The administrative court of the canton of Zurich has ruled that a withdrawal of this permit according to § 16 of the Hospitality Act is only lawful in the event of a disruption that has actually been caused; however, if there are prior doubts, a municipality can grant a temporary permit. A request initiated by the then City of Zurich Police Chief Esther Maurer (SP) to reinstate the police hour (often also called "Lex Langstrasse") failed in 2003 in the Zurich Cantonal Council with 65 to 96 votes. This rejection was justified, among other things, with reference to possible arbitrariness and then new offers such as night trains and the associated change in going out behavior.
Austria
The curfew regulates opening hours restrictions and opening bans in Austria at the level of the federal states. Here, a distinction is usually made according to the type of locality in café, cafe restaurant, coffee house, restaurant, bar as well as discotheque / dance hall. In Vienna, there is a legally prescribed curfew at 2:00 a.m. for cafes, coffee houses and cafe restaurants, 4:00 a.m. for bars, and bars with the operating mode “discotheque - clubbing lounge” are allowed to keep open until 6:00 a.m. In the countries of Upper Austria , Burgenland , Carinthia and Salzburg bars must close at 4:00 am, in Vorarlberg at 2:00 am, at 5:00 pm in Lower Austria and Styria , and at 6:00 pm in Tirol .
For cafes there are legal curfew at 5:00 a.m. in Styria and Lower Austria, at 2:00 a.m. in Carinthia and Burgenland and at 4:00 a.m. in Upper Austria.
Discos must close at 4:00 a.m. in Upper Austria, Burgenland, Carinthia and Salzburg, and at 5:00 a.m. in Lower Austria and Styria, at 6:00 a.m. in Tyrol.
As a counterpart to the concept of curfew is also in some provisions, the concept of Aufsperrstunde .
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a temporary, nationwide curfew at 11 p.m. since May 2020; previously, restaurants had to be generally closed in order to contain the spread of the virus.
United Kingdom
In Great Britain, the curfew was abolished in England and Wales with the entry into force of the Licensing Act on November 24, 2005. However, only a few hundred pubs applied for all-day opening hours, while more than 60,000 requested that they be open until 1 a.m. (as of November 2005). This is mainly due to economic reasons:
“Local bars still close at eleven, on weekends no more than an hour later. Many pubs have become more family-friendly, but that's partly because of the smoking ban and partly because we now have to serve food in order to survive financially. "
The approximately one thousand full licenses went mainly to supermarkets and petrol stations.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hannes Obermair : Written form and documented tradition of the city of Bozen up to 1500 . In: Bozen Süd - Bolzano Nord . tape 2 . Bolzano 2008, ISBN 978-88-901870-1-8 , pp. 139, no.1107 .
- ↑ The beautiful excess of night . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on August 26, 2017]).
- ^ HR Schwarzenbach: Outline of administrative law.
- ↑ Police hour reintroduced. In: baizer.ch .
- ↑ Night life again in the grip of officials. In: Onlinereports.ch .
- ↑ Administrative Court of the Canton of Zurich - VB.2005.00014 ( Memento from December 9, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Hospitality Act of the Canton of Zurich. In: zhlex.zh.ch (PDF; 128 kB)
- ^ Minutes of the Zurich Cantonal Council, 10th meeting, Monday, August 25, 2003, 8.15 a.m. ( Memento from August 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) In: Zürcher Unterländer.
- ↑ Minutes of the Zurich Cantonal Council of August 25, 2003. P. 763 ff.
- ↑ Cantonal Council of Zurich August 25, 2003.
- ↑ Gastronomy is allowed to open from May 15th - 11 p.m. curfew. In: Vienna Online. April 22, 2020, accessed May 19, 2020 .
- ↑ See last order for last order. In: tagesschau.de archive , imprecise message from November 16, 2005
- ↑ 2005: Pubs open 24 hours. In: bbc.co.uk
- ^ Article in the DLF
- ↑ Ulrich Schilling-Strack: The balance sheet looks rather sober. In: Weser courier . No. 276 of November 24, 2006, p. 7.
