By Gunnar Schupelius
In Wilmersdorf, a never-ending wave of lawsuits for allegedly disturbing the peace is ruining the good mood. Noise protection is important, but it should never be pushed so far that streets and squares become deserted, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The Rüdesheimer Platz in Wilmersdorf is known for the fact that winegrowers from Rüdesheim and the surrounding area serve their wine there in summer.
At the top of the Siegfriedbrunnen you sit like in a beer garden and bring your own bread and cheese. The audience is well-kept and a bit older, nobody makes noise. All you hear is the soft clinking of glasses and human murmurs.
And yet a single local resident managed to complain about this oasis. We have reported about this several times. A court has already ruled that no more wine may be served after 9:30 p.m., at 10 p.m. the guests must leave.
The bar was then stopped for two years due to the Corona rules. Only this year did the winegrowers come back. In the meantime, the plaintiff had made it to the Federal Administrative Court.
He complained about the fact that on summer evenings people settled down for a picnic everywhere on Rüdesheimer Platz. This could not be forbidden by the court, but the high judges decreed that people on the square were not allowed to drink wine from the wine bar. This wine may only be drunk directly from the bar and only by a limited number of guests.
The Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district office implemented this decision as follows: three of the four entrances to the area in front of the bar were barricaded with red and white bars. The wine lovers are now locked up there as if in a high-security wing.
A security guard stands at the fourth entrance and makes sure that nobody with a glass in their hand leaves the cordoned off area.
“We have tried,” the responsible city councilor Oliver Schrouffeneger (Greens) told me on request, “through various restrictions, such as limiting the maximum number of seats at the bar, to ensure that the wine festival is not endangered overall”.
That’s why the public order office is on duty almost every day to check that the security guard is doing a good job, i.e. that the maximum number of guests is not exceeded and that nobody is carrying their wine down to the square.
According to the district office, the plaintiff has already inspected the files again. He is apparently trying to identify a violation of the new requirements in order to attack the wine bar again.
This bar has a long tradition. He ennobles the place. The lawsuit destroys one of the city’s most popular meeting places.
The good mood is spoiled, bit by bit with each new lawsuit. It can not go on like this! Noise protection? Yes, but nobody has the right to dead silence.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]