The city demands that the Neuhauser Augustiner should keep his beer table sets away from the tribes for ecological reasons. Local politicians are irritated: Why does that apply there and not in the beer gardens?
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Ellen Draxel
In the Neuhauser Augustiner on Hübnerstrasse, you can sit as comfortably as in a beer garden – on the grass under the trees, right next to the sidewalk. And according to the district administration department (KVR), it can stay that way. However, only if the landlord keeps a minimum distance of two and a half meters from the trees. The reason: According to the building department, outdoor areas on unpaved root areas can damage the trees that are so important for ecology and the cityscape. The Neuhauser Augustiner has apparently increasingly ignored this requirement, which was already a condition for the use of the green strip as an outdoor area in 2004. The restaurant operator therefore received a letter from the district inspection: it contained the request to keep the “crown eaves area” free of any seating.
Neuhausen’s local politicians react “irritated” by this process. According to Nikolai Lipkowitsch (Greens), he “cannot see” where, from a botanical point of view, the difference is between trees in the greenery along the road and in beer gardens. “The trees have been in the latter for centuries,” argues the chairman of the transport subcommittee, “and the root system can probably cope better with the load of the beer table sets than with the sealing and heavy loads of the roadways.”
So is the agency’s intervention setting a precedent? These regulations on tree protection, puts KVR spokesman Johannes Mayer into perspective, affect “only a few restaurants that use outdoor areas under trees on the public sidewalk”. On the other hand, there are “no reservations” about seating under trees on paved surfaces. And as far as the situation in beer gardens is concerned: These areas are private property, municipal regulations are “not relevant” there. The protection of these trees is the responsibility of the owners.