The sanitary pass in shopping centers turns into an imbroglio

The sanitary pass in shopping centers turns into an imbroglio

"If it's blurry for us, shopping centers, I can't imagine what our customers understand," sighs one within a large property company. Since the introduction from August 9 of the health pass in a good hundred shopping centers, the constraints have continued to change, to the point of becoming illegible.

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In these places of commerce, unlike restaurants, the rules vary from one department to another. Renouncing to impose the pass in the law on all shopping centers in France of more than 20,000 square meters, the government gave the prefects the possibility of introducing it on a case-by-case basis , "when the characteristics (of these centers) and the seriousness of the risks of contamination justify it”.

Coaster pedals

Since then, prefectural decrees establishing or abolishing the pass have followed one another, forcing professionals into permanent logistical gymnastics. The prefect of Loire-Atlantique was the first to draw his decree on August 8, before repealing it a few days later because the incidence rate in his department was too low. The government had just specified that the pass would only be required beyond a departmental incidence rate of 200 – it was only 140 in Loire-Atlantique.

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Le passe sanitaire dans les centres commerciaux vire à l’imbroglio

In the North, the prefecture warned shopping centers and the local press that the pass would be required from August 24… before backpedaling on August 23 at 10 p.m., once the staff dedicated to QR Code control had been recruited. Several prefects, as in Paris, imposed, against all expectations, the pass below an incidence rate of 200. As the epidemic diminished, “a dozen departments where the pass applies fell below the threshold of 200, but the decrees are still in force, notes Jacques Creyssel, the general delegate of the Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD). We demand their removal.

Several appeals

Another prefectural decree was suspended in Yvelines on Monday, by the administrative court. Referred to by a lawyer residing in Versailles, the judge considered that the decree "does not guarantee access to shops of essential goods located within the confines of these centers". Pharmacies, hypermarkets and medical offices were subject to the health pass, as in all shopping centers where it is required. However, the decree implementing the law provides that access “to essential goods and services, as well as, where applicable, to means of transport” must be guaranteed. Some prefects have approached this guarantee on the scale of a living area. The court of Versailles made another reading of it, able to question many decrees.

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Several other appeals have also been filed, which should be judged this week. "The criterion of the incidence rate of 200 and the concept of living area are not legal," said Vincent Brenot, partner at August Debouzy. The lawyer considers certain decrees particularly fragile legally, “such as those which target open-air shopping centers, located on a transport node, or which house vaccination centers”. However, the case law is far from being fixed, the judgment of Yvelines being only a first instance (the prefecture had not yet appealed on Wednesday). Some prefects concerned could also reconsider these decrees on their own, with contamination decreasing. Shopping centers are in limbo.