The entrepreneurs of Broodje van Eigen Deeg in Stad are at a loss. A majority of the political parties do not want bakers in the municipality of Groningen to open their business on Sunday morning. Their turnover is now falling and they hope for a temporary solution, but there is none.
“We have to decide before July 1 whether we extend our lease,” says Tineke Plagmeijer, who runs the business in Brugstraat with her husband Menno. “We have been open on Sunday mornings for seven years. We’ve aligned our entire business to a six-and-a-half-day turnover. And that Sunday morning was a really important morning.”
Due to increased energy costs and the loss of part of the turnover, they see a gloomy future. “Several times we have asked the alderman, a civil servant and also the mayor, during a conversation and by e-mail, for a temporary solution. Or talk about it. But we just don’t get an answer.”
The opposition would allow the bakers to open
The spokesperson for responsible alderman Carine Bloemhoff (PvdA) says that it was explained to the Plagmeijers in a personal conversation that there was only one solution: an adjustment of the rules. Something the city council had to vote on. There is an emergency package for energy measures for all entrepreneurs, she says.
D66, Student & City, VVD, City Party 100% for Groningen, Party for the North and the PVV made an attempt last week to adjust the rules in the municipality of Groningen so that bakers would be allowed to open before 12 p.m. on Sundays. A rule adjustment that was applied in Maastricht, among others, years ago. Without complaints from other smaller entrepreneurs or large supermarkets, according to a municipal spokesperson there.
In Groningen, the council fears numerous problems. Besides, other bakers wouldn’t need it. The coalition (GroenLinks, PvdA, SP, Party for the Animals and ChristenUnie) and opposition party CDA do not want it. Partly because of the Sunday rest to be respected (established in the coalition agreement) and partly because they fear that the end will be lost. It would be a step too far towards a 24-hour economy, the PvdA believes.
D66 and Student & City fear that it will no longer happen with the current college, a Sunday morning opening for bakers. Together with the other opposition parties, they have asked questions about Groningen’s ‘muddled inner-city policy’, recently fueled by the announcement of the introduction of an advertising tax.
After the petition with 3655 statements of support, it remained silent
Last week Tineke Plagmeijer received a photo of the voting ratio on the Sunday morning opening by one of the council members. Seventeen for, twenty-five against. She and her husband Menno had not really expected anything else. A month ago they presented the city council with a petition with 3655 statements of support. After that it remained silent.
For seven years she and her husband Menno had opened the doors of their business in the Brugstraat. Until someone reported this to the municipality and the municipality decided to enforce the rules. ,,And they will continue to do that with us”, says Plagmeijer. “That feels unfair. I know enough places that are already open on Sunday morning against the rules, where the municipality does not enforce, because it does not know about it.