Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) itself does not agree with the relaxed standards for ventilation in the catering industry. Those standards are effective July 1 relaxed and are well below the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, experts in the NRC.
The industry association already expressed itself against the new ventilation standards in a letter to the cabinet last October. “If the corona crisis has made one thing clear, it is that good ventilation in spaces where people gather is crucial,” KHN wrote in the letter.
As of 1 July, the Licensing and Catering Act has been replaced by the Alcohol Act; the ventilation standard in the catering industry has been substantially adjusted. The catering industry must now meet the requirements of the Building Decree: the air in existing catering buildings only needs to be refreshed about once an hour, instead of every ten minutes. For new buildings, the requirement is slightly higher, but still below the WHO standard.
‘Absurd’
Experts call the lowering of the standard during the pandemic “absurd”. According to them, the requirements from the Building Decree are mainly drawn up to combat odor nuisance instead of preventing the spread of infectious diseases.
“I watched it in amazement,” says Atze Boerstra, indoor environmental specialist and professor at TU Delft, on NPO Radio 1. “The reasoning was: ‘We smoke less in the catering industry, so that old requirement can be discarded’. But at the same time We were in the middle of a pandemic where we learned that with regard to infectious diseases, it is a good idea to provide ample ventilation where many people come together.”
‘Solution is simple’
KHN says that many catering businesses do meet the old stricter requirements. “As far as KHN is concerned, the solution is simple. The cabinet can reduce the ventilation standards to the requirements of the former Licensing and Catering Act. This means that the ventilation standards on paper match the ventilation in practice just as well.”
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