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Tourists in Barcelona’s historic centre have been left out in the cold.
That’s because visitors in December enjoyed the last days of gas-powered patio heaters before their use was banned in 2025 due to their carbon emissions.
The ban came into force on January 1 and is the culmination of a years-long battle between the city council and restaurateurs who fear a loss of business from customers shunning outdoor seating areas during the winter.
The measure was first introduced in 2018, but the city council allowed for a gradual phasing out, to give time for the hospitality sector to adapt.
Electric heaters with a capacity no greater than 150W/m2 will still be permitted between November 1 and April 30, the city council said in a statement on December 17.
Heated outdoor seating areas are already banned in France, where energy conservation groups calculate that their use in a 75 m2 terrace during the winter months emitted as much CO2 as a car circling the globe three times.
Owners of buildings have been encouraged to improve insulation and banned from installing new coal- or oil-burning furnaces.
An attempt by Madrid to ban heaters in outdoor areas was thwarted last year after a local court ruled that the city council had failed to provide evidence that they contributed to global warming.
Meanwhile, in the UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is to drop a proposed ban on smoking in pub and restaurant gardens. Smokers will still be barred from lighting up outside hospitals and schools, under plans first outlined in the summer.
But the government will axe the idea of including pubs and racecourses in the outdoors smoking ban, according to The Sun.
In late August, when the idea first emerged, the prime minister said action was needed to reduce the burden of smoking-related disease on the NHS and the taxpayer.
In July last year thousands of Barcelona residents squirted diners in tourist areas with water during a protest against mass tourism.
The Spanish locals chanted “tourists go home” with placards that read “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism” in the demonstration against overtourism.
Video footage shows holidaymakers dining outside popular squares in the city being doused with water pistols and cordoned off using hazard tape by a crowd of almost 3,000.
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