The City of Cape Town has launched a plan to encourage restaurants, coffee shops, pubs and other small businesses to operate outdoors in a bid to kick-start a post-Covid economic recovery and get people to return to town.
In the wake of an economic lockdown that began in March, the Cape Town CBD Economic Recovery Initiative will enable businesses to operate outdoors using a special permit, which can be acquired at a discount of more than 50% to what has been charged in the past, says Tasso Evangelinos, CEO of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID).
The CCID is a public-private partnership that supports a designated portion of the CBD, providing services including cleaning and security.
The project is being driven by James Vos, Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for economic opportunities and asset management, said Evangelinos, calling it "a positive and proactive response to the Covid-19 pandemic now that we are living under level 1 restrictions".
He said: "Our side of this project is called Come Back To Town. Essentially, we want to help businesses trade in the CBD as we go into the summer season. We want to get Capetonians to come back to the city.
"It’s illegal for employers to force their staff to return to the office, but they can encourage them to do so. We want to play our part in getting an economic recovery on track and get people back into our CBD."
The CCID has approached about 300 eateries and coffee shops that operate in the CBD with the offer of a "table and chairs" permit, which enables them to trade outdoors.
Some shops had never traded "on the street" before, while others were trading actively with permits before lockdown. Those that already have permits can apply for a new permit and pay half the previous monthly fee. The permit normally costs about R3,000.
The CCID reduced red tape associated with the application process by hand-delivering application forms to each trader operating in the district, and then facilitating a mass discounted application process. The processing of applications has been fast-tracked by arrangement with the city to take about four weeks instead of months.
The Cape Town CBD Economic Recovery Initiative will run until the end of June 2021.
Evangelinos said for the rest of 2020 the CCID will run a number of other "retail activations" with the help of social media influencers and digital companies. These will promote specialised shopping, bars for sundowners, buskers, entertainers and other forms of public participation between noon and 2pm each day.
"We can’t stay locked in our homes forever; the economy needs to come back to life," Evangelinos said.
"The CBD was an extremely positive place before the pandemic, and what we have here is a positive solution. We are operating in a responsible way with the correct health precautions in place so that we don’t put people’s lives at risk."
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