Casamia have applied for permission to serve food and alcohol on the pavement outside their premises. Under the Government COVID-recovery roadmap, restaurants can open for outdoor service from 12th April. Indoor service will not be allowed before 17th May at the earliest. Restaurants and pubs are anxious to resume business as soon as possible and outdoor service is clearly the way forward. It will be good to welcome back Bathurst Basin restaurants and pubs after such a long spell of lockdown.
Friends of Bathurst Basin are concerned that restaurants and pubs respect local residents when they operate in public areas. We have therefore written to Central Ward Councillor Kye Dudd with four comments on Casamia’s application:
- Their table service should be strictly confined to the area they mention in their application.
- The licence should not allow amplified music to be played on the pavement.
- All outside areas should be closed and cleared of customers by 10.30pm (rather than 11pm asked for)
- In the first instance the licence should be granted for a limited period, say 6 months.
Hello,
The Louisiana were also considering doing this on Bathurst Parade, next to The Louisiana – The area would have been cordoned off, supervised, a 1.8 metre pedestrian walkthrough and packed away by 21.30 – LTD period of 4 months – No Umbrellas.
Lockdown has hit us pretty hard. If it wasn’t for public support (Crowdfunder) and Arts Council funding, we would have had to close.
However, we will not be pursuing this, even though we had the backing of some of our neighbours, Police & local councillor and our Local MP who see The Louisiana as one of the beacons of Bristol culture & community.
For the record, we helped eradicate the issue with people who were taking & selling drugs from “Gods Garden” and under the bridge by The Louisiana roundabout.
We also clean any rubbish left from Ostrich and city centre customers.
We also kept an eye on some of our neighbours who felt threatened when the people who were taking drugs were being a nuisance.
Best Regards,
M. Schillace
The Casamia application allows an 8 metre pavement width for pedestrians. In the Louisiana application the pedestrian throughway was much narrower – just 1.8m – and service to the tables from the Louisiana had to cross it.
As much as I welcome the cafe society atmosphere, I am quite concerned about them playing amplified music late into the night as Paco tapas staff kept their music playing pretty late last year, and repetitive beats really carried across the water!
The 4 comments sent to Councillor Dudd appear very reasonable requests. If these are adhered to we should not have a problem with Casamia.
If they are playing loud music now which can be heard across the water, then Casamia / Paco Tapas aren’t complying to their current licence which asks them not to be a noise nuisance. This could get worse with more outdoor seating as they will need to leave doors open some of the time to serve customers.
I’d be happy for them to have outdoor seating if they turn their music down.
Let’s invite them into the FOBB community and get them working with us. It’s a mixed area of residential and commercial. If everyone considers the others’ needs, then everyone can be happy.
Sadly Casamia haven’t replied to my emails raising concerns. So i plan to go visit them once they reopen.
I agree with the four comments re the granting of a pavement licence to Casamia. If they adhered to the requests it should be fine.
Its twenty past eleven on a Friday night in Bathurst Basin and Paco Tapas are still using the outside space, have there doors wide open, and music blaring.
Sorry to hear that Ben. I hope you’ve reported them to the council. They need to follow the rules of their licence, and it’s now clear they don’t want to listen to neighbours. So the council now need to sort it. It’s not fair on neighbours or other commercials who do follow the rules. I’d urge anyone affected to also report and get this nuisance fixed.