From 1 January 2024. Orihuela bar owners and hoteliers must once again pay a terrace tax, the fee for occupying public roads with their tables and chairs. Previously, all through covid in fact, they were exempt the tax as a result of the detrimental effect that the virus was having on their business. Last Thursday, however, at the Orihuela Plenary session, the local PP/Vox coalition government voted to reintroduce the charge, despite a motion by Ciudadanos to maintain the exemption.
The local executive justified the vote because the extraordinary situation that was the pandemic has now ended with the measure adopted to help hoteliers during those difficult times, prolonging it in 2021, 2022 and in 2023.
“We must no longer discriminate between businesses, with the bar and cafeteria sector exempt from the rate, but not the merchants,” justified the PP councillor Víctor Valverde.
In total the tax generates approximately 120,000 euros per year for the council, although now that figure would increase because requests for licenses to establish terraces have doubled during the period of exemption, during which time establishing a terrace on a public road could be done at zero cost.
