Millions of lawsuits from several ski hut owners are likely to come to the Republic of Austria. They want compensation for pointless investments and the loss of sales in the 2020/21 season. The Viennese lawyer Wolf-Georg Schärf says he has already sent a letter of formal notice to the Finanzprokuratur. If these were rejected, there would be a series of official liability suits.
“Losses of 100,000 to 300,000 euros have certainly been written per hut,” says Schärf, who represents several clients. “Something has accumulated.”
What it is specifically about: Even in the third corona-related lockdown in December 2020, the gastronomy had to close. An exception to this was take-away. But here again there was an exception to the exception: catering establishments were not allowed to sell takeaway food and drinks to their customers if they were not connected to a public road.
The idea behind it: Ski huts in the valley that are connected to the public road network would also have sufficient parking spaces where take-away customers could consume with sufficient distance.
But the Constitutional Court did not accept that: The fact that a ski hut can be reached via a public road does not provide any reliable information as to whether there is really enough space outside for eating and drinking. This regulation applied in Upper Austria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, where it was decreed by the provincial governors. The federal government had set the framework, but the federal states were able to tighten the corona rules.
“Night and Fog Action”
The take-away ban affected ski hut hosts such as restaurateur Stefan Stadlmayr on the Wurzeralm. “Back then, we were already preparing for the take-away for tourers, we bought cash registers, set up the serving desks, simply the entire infrastructure,” says the entrepreneur. But then the said regulation came in a “night and fog action”.
Source: Nachrichten
