A DISY lawmaker has tabled a proposal that revives a government bill on the operation of food and entertainment venues just days after the administration withdrew it over disagreements with the version amended by parties in parliament.
Kyriakos Hadjiyiannis turned the bill, as reshaped by the House Commerce Committee, into a legislative proposal that was submitted to the House plenary on Thursday.
The proposal will return to the Commerce Committee on Tuesday as MPs try to send it to the plenary for approval before parliament dissolves itself.
When the Deputy Ministry of Tourism withdrew the bill hours before it was due to go before the House, MPs reacted strongly after examining it for more than five months across 10 meetings. The main dispute centred on opening hours for food and entertainment venues, as well as noise pollution rules, with party positions differing from those of the government.
The proposal largely reflects what members of the Commerce Committee agreed on, with the main change concerning opening hours. Under the final text, taverns and beer halls would be allowed to stay open all year until 3:30 a.m., while music and dance venues and discotheques could remain open until 5:00 a.m. by ministerial decree.
More specifically, venues in the “food and leisure” category and those in the “entertainment” category would be allowed to stay open until 3:30 a.m. the following day.
The Energy Minister, acting on a proposal from the Deputy Minister of Tourism, would also be able to extend the operating hours of leisure venues by decree beyond 3:30 a.m., but not later than 5:00 a.m.
The proposal also allows for a special operating licence for unlicensed premises that were operating before the new law comes into force, provided they follow the required procedure and meet the conditions set out in the legislation. Closed-type premises would be excluded.
Under the proposal, the authority to issue an operating licence for a food or entertainment venue would shift to the municipal council or community council for premises within the boundaries of the relevant municipality or community, instead of the director-general of the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, as the government’s original bill provided.
It also gives the Interior Minister the power to transfer the powers of a community council, as the competent authority for issuing a leisure venue operating licence, to the relevant district officer.
Leisure venues operating within hotel grounds or tourist accommodation and rented out to third parties would be exempt from the requirement to obtain a leisure venue operating licence.
The Deputy Ministry of Tourism would be required to keep a general register of operating licences issued by the competent authorities. At the same time, it would have the power to carry out any checks it considers necessary at leisure venues to ensure compliance with the tourism strategy and to recommend corrective measures, while informing the competent authority.
The operating licence fee would cover the full period of the licence’s validity. A new updated application would also have to be submitted if any of the information or data in the original application changes after it has been filed.
For the issuance of a food venue operating licence, applicants would no longer need to submit a copy of a letter from the Department of Labour Inspection on the existence of a written risk assessment. Reception halls would also be exempt from the obligation to display a price list.