The Chennai Hotel Association has approached the Madras High Court seeking a modification of its recent order directing the Chennai Corporation authorities to close all restaurants, hotels, and eateries without adequate parking space.
On February 10, the First Bench of the High Court passed a blanket order to shut down all hotels and eateries in the city that did not have proper parking spaces. The Bench made it clear that the establishments would be allowed to function only if they provide parking space.
Claiming that the members of the association would be put to great mental agony and financial loss, the petitioner said, “The association is representing the interests of over 1,000 hotels in the metropolitan city of Chennai. The members range from high-end fine dining restaurants to small-time roadside eateries providing food to the lower economic strata. It is respectfully submitted that no common order can be passed for restaurants as a generic class without keeping the above clear distinction of restaurants in mind.”
Licences obtained
The members have been operating restaurants for several decades with valid trade licence and the restaurants are in buildings that are 30 to 100 years old and located in a continuous zone. All members also have licence under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and licence under Fire Safety Act as mandated, the petitioner added.
Pointing out that the Chennai Second Master Plan has proposed varying parking requirements for restaurants based on their size and category and that a car parking space is required only proportional to the square feet of floor area and not based on number of tables/seating capacity, the association said, “Unfortunately, misconstruing the order of this court, the authorities have started issuing notices to several of our member establishments seeking provision of car parking based on the tables/seating capacity, wholly ignoring the size of the restaurant.”
Consequently, small eateries functioning in less than 500 sqft area are still being asked to provide car parking space, the petitioner said.
