The terraces without authorization in Herastrau thrive in the midst of the state’s war with them. As Clotilde Armand explains

The mayor of Sector 1, Clotilde Armand, systematically declared against the restaurants and terraces in Herăstrău Park. The top pubs are in the same place. HotNews.ro asked her what was happening.

• The law states that you can confiscate the money you made when you operated illegally. But the “make a new company” system to move the restaurant is widely encountered, says the mayor.

Herăstrău Park is under the administration of the General City Hall of the Capital, and the consequence is that all building permits are given by this institution, Clotilde Armand explains in an interview for HotNews.ro readers.

“The only thing I can do is related to operating permits. And then, in order to solve the problem, I focused on this part, to legally condition the obtaining of operating permits with a construction permit”, says Armand.

The law provides for the confiscation of illegally obtained money. “But enforcement is cumbersome”

Another legal lever is the confiscation of the income earned during the period in which the terraces operated illegally.

“What I can do and do is to proceed with the confiscation of the incomes that are made during the period in which the terrace operated without an operating permit. We are in the process of confiscating 20 million lei,” says the mayor.

However, the procedure is difficult and involves the cooperation of several institutions, the mayor states. Steps listed by Clotilde Armand:

• “How do we do this? The local police go to the terrace in question and find that it is operating without an operating permit and make a report. This report, of course the administrator refuses to sign it, refuses to receive it, we have to send it by post, through the executor”.
• “The report is contested in court and all this madness lasts maybe six months, nine months. We win lawsuits systematically. The only thing they are doing is buying time.”
• “Then we make the second report which finds that it is still operating without an operating permit.”
• “All the income that was made by this terrace-restaurant, between these two minutes, according to the law can be confiscated. In order to proceed with the confiscation, first of all the Economic Police must come and calculate how much these revenues were”.

The relationship with the economic police

The mayor says that, over time, the collaboration between the authorities has also been regulated.

“We pray to them (the economic police, no), at first it was difficult, but now they come more easily. We were the first UAT to go through all these processes and it took a while until we were able to set them up and have the input/cooperation of all state institutions”, explained Clotilde Armand.

The next step involves ANAF, which must confiscate these revenues. But, here too, difficulties arise, according to the mayor.

The “make a new company” system is widely encountered

“There were some ANAFs who accepted, but also ANAFs who took their time, etc. After the ANAF is contacted and accepts, the confiscation is done. What I can tell you is that the moment ANAF gets involved and does that, these movies generally shut down. Then we manage to go to the end”, explained the mayor.

The problem is that other companies are opening, which do the same thing, says the mayor. Armand describes a general system, at the level of Sector 1:

• “We have restaurants that are very noisy, where every weekend there is a different company that organizes events, to avoid the confiscation system that I described to you.”

Why is it better in Herăstrau

From this point of view, in Herăstrau, says Armand, it is better, because the land is leased by the state through contracts and the contractor cannot be changed to a new company.

• “In Herăstrau Park, things are a little better, because these terraces are on the land concessioned by ALPAB to a certain person/company and they cannot change the company”.
• “If this company can no longer operate because its accounts have been stopped by ANAF, normally no other company can come.”
• “Now we are in a legal situation where we ensure that the company that has the concession contract with ALPAB cannot subcontract with another company. That is, we are in a legal process to prevent these companies from continuing to operate some terraces when they do not have a license to operate”.

“The operating authorization includes the ISU authorization!”

Clotilde Armand believes that the legislation must be changed so that the City Hall can close restaurants that operate illegally.

“We must have the power to simply close, to not allow access to the restaurant, to the terrace that does not have an operating permit if we are alerted and it is in real danger,” she believes.

“Attention, the operating authorization also includes the ISU authorization! I mean, we are in a situation where we know that a terrace does not have a permit to operate, we did not give them permission to operate, I do not want to recall a dramatic case, we report both the Municipal Police and the National Police, but we are not allowed by force to prevent access to these buildings and then it is a problem. It works on its own responsibility”, explained the mayor.

Another proposal is to write on the facade of the restaurants that they operate without authorization.

Mayor says patrons have ‘an arrogance that’s hard to describe’

“Do you know how strong these terraces and premises are? How many pressures did I get? I mean, it’s a very difficult war. It’s a pressure, an arrogance that’s hard to describe.”

“They don’t care at all that we don’t give them the permit, they treat the whole process with great contempt. There are people who come to tell me that it is not a good idea to try to solve this problem, that there are some powerful people who own these terraces and it is a war that will bring me only problems and no benefit”, he added said Clotilde Armand in the interview given to HotNews.ro.