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Customers not impressed as Spain proposes closing pubs earlier

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Spain’s Labour Minister believes bars and restaurants shouldn’t stay open past 1am

Customers not impressed as Spain proposes closing pubs earlier

Publicans and patrons alike are up in arms over a suggestion made this week by Minister of Labour Yolanda Díaz that bars and restaurants across Spain should be closed earlier. She has advocated limiting the hours of the hospitality industry as she doesn’t believe it’s “reasonable” to expect pubs and eateries to remain open until one in the morning.

Ruling political party the PSOE has already agreed to revise the average working week in Spain, and Ms Díaz wants Congress to consider bar and restaurant opening times within the same framework.

"It is crazy to try to continue extending the hours until we don't know what time," she stressed, highlighting the huge difference between closing time in Spain and the rest of Europe.

The Spanish government plans to reduce the maximum legal working week from 40 hours to 38.5 hours in 2024 and further down to 37.5 hours in 2025. This move is expected to impact 13 million workers, according to estimates by the Workers' Commissions union (CCOO).

However, the plan has faced opposition from some quarters, particularly from Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of Madrid, who supports flexible work arrangements in the hospitality industry. Similarly, España de Noche, an employers' association representing the leisure and nightlife sector, has rejected the proposal, arguing that limiting hospitality hours would harm the tourism industry and benefit rival countries.

"Spain has the best nightlife in the world, with the streets full of life and freedom. And that also provides jobs," Ms Díaz Ayuso wrote on social media.

Likewise, representatives of the sector argue that the Labour Minister is unfairly targeting pubs and restaurants, and that any real debate about opening hours would also have to focus on other night-time leisure activities, like shopping centres and TV's late-night talk shows and broadcasts.

España de Noche warned of a huge backlash against the proposal. A booming nightlife "is one of the pillars of Spain being the top country in the world in vacation tourism," a spokesperson said, "so any experiment that endangers our lifestyle, our tourist attraction and the activity of companies in the sector, only can cause social and business rejection."

In other news: Does the oldest woman in the world hold the secrets to long life?

Image: Freepik

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