Council Demands Removal of Gazebos Outside Chiswick Café

Owner claims enforcement officers were aggressive during premise visit

The gazebos outside Outsider Tart

A furious row has blown up over the gazebos installed on the street outside a café in Chiswick.

Outside Tart has erected the structures near the corner of Chiswick High Road and Chiswick Lane to enable their customers to eat and drink outdoors but in shelter and observe social distancing.

Café owner David Lesniak believed that the canvas coverings were allowable under relaxed licensing regulations which encouraged businesses to expand onto pavements during the pandemic as research suggested eating outdoors was safer.

A warning notice was sent to the café from Hounslow Highways, which Mr Lesniak says was addressed to ‘Tart’ and which required the removal of the gazebos on the grounds that they were obstructing the public footpath.

When the café reopened on 2 December, it was visited by two enforcement officers from Hounslow Highways who demanded the removal of the gazebos. Mr Lesniak described the officers as ‘belligerent’ and reported the encounter to Cllr John Todd who raised the issue with the borough licensing department. He was told that the issue of pavement licensing under the new regulations was uncertain and that they would ‘try and find a solution’. Cllr Todd was told that although the enforcement officers may have been over-zealous they had not meant to be antagonistic.

However, less than 24 hours later the café was called by a member of Hounslow’s trading standards team who repeated the demand for the immediate removal of the gazebos and advised permission needed to be granted before they could be erected.

The accelerated application process, which was introduced by the government during the pandemic, allows for pavement licences to be granted within 7 days but a planning application would take much longer.

Mr Lesniak said, “This is a disconnect and negates the very intention of fast-track licensing. A lot has happened since we emerged from the first lockdown. Applications made were prepared in mid-July with information available at the time. Subsequently, a second lockdown was mandated forcing us to severely restrict our offer. Yet there was no response in the form of an updated fast track licence to address the emergent issues of new demand on outdoor seating as was prescribed by central government.

"As we watched behaviours upon re-opening from the first lockdown, we noticed customers sat outside in weather which would normally have them take shelter. This came as no surprise given ‘the science’ and threat posed by premises such as ours. We acted in accordance with that science and evidence providing distancing and safety for both staff and customers. As people were encourage to meet outside more so than previously, providing shelter for all was a sudden response to ever evolving pandemic circumstances.”

Mr Lesniak denies the gazebos cause an obstruction and says that most nearby businesses were enthusiastically supportive. Brewers, the paint suppliers, did not support the idea and a gazebo placed in front of its premises was removed.

He also dismisses the suggestion that the gazebos are unsafe having employed a professional events management to erect them.

The trading standards department have suggested that the gazebos restricted access to a nearby memorial bench but this had already been cordoned off by the council due to concerns about its condition.

Mr Lesniak adds, “So as we struggle to stay afloat as are most businesses, we also struggle to make sense of the about-face from one day to the next. How did we get from the promise of collaboration to resolve the ‘uncertainty’ of the fast track protocol to belligerent threat?”

We have asked Hounslow Council for a comment but have not yet received a response.

December 13, 2020