Staff of the new Più restaurant have to shine in the evening

From the start of this month, Italian food has been served in the former post office in the city of Zug. It’s also possible for customers to dine under the open sky on the upper Postplatz. But not without risks for the Ristorante Più staff!

If you want to enjoy an aperitif or dine on the upper Postplatz in the city of Zug, you can do so on one of 64 seats. These are part of the recently opened Ristorante Più, which is run by the Bindella Group. There is a road between the restaurant and the outdoor area, however, which the staff has to cross in order to bring the orders there.

On the occasion of the opening, Rudi Bindella junior, who is in charge of Bindella gastronomy, explained in our newspaper that the street can be a certain danger to the staff. "Our staff have to be careful when they cross the road. The road is quite busy," explained Bindella at the time.

Politicians react to the situation
In an interpellation, Zug's municipal councillors (Gemeinderäte) Ignaz Voser and Martin Iten (both CSP) ask the city council questions about the newly created situation. Ignaz Voser is also a member of the Building and Planning Commission (BPK) of the Grand Municipal Council (Grossen Gemeinderat).

They wanted to know whether the city council (Stadtrat) is aware "that, with the granting of the permit for a second outdoor restaurant area with a further 64 seats, including service station, on the upper Postplatz, a new traffic situation has been created, and thereby the need to ensure more safety for guests and staff in front of the new restaurant Più has arisen, and in particular in the area of upper Postplatz."

The staff of the "Più" have to cross this road when they serve customers in the outdoor area. View from the restaurant entrance to the upper Postplatz.                            Stefan Kaiser, Zug

In addition, the city council should explain whether it has already had contact with the responsible persons, and whether it could imagine turning the upper Postplatz into a meeting zone in order to promote safety.

Traffic on the upper Postplatz is considerable
Although the upper Postplatz is not located on a busy road, the after-work traffic is still considerable, said  a "Più" operating assistant in a report by online magazine Zentralplus. The speed limit on the road is 30 km/h, which means that although pedestrians can cross the street wherever they want, vehicles have priority. And this makes the situation challenging for the staff of the Ristorante.

According to Alexander Maycock, Managing Director of Marketing and Communications at Bindella, the city requires that the staff must be visible in the evening. And this is how it will now be done.

"Our staff wear luminous reflectors on both sides of the body from the beginning of the evening shift, i.e. from 5 pm. We are not using luminous vests,” he says. This is in line with the requirements of the city of Zug, which demanded a safety analysis and appropriate measures before the restaurant could open.

In this regard, Ignaz Voser wanted to know whether the city is not making things a little too easy for itself by ordering the wearing of light vests, instead of asking whether this is enough before granting the permit.

The example of the neighbouring "Plaza" restaurant is also cited In the interpellation, where cars drive past the busy outdoor area on fine weather days, sometimes only a short distance away.

The problem could be solved with a 20 km/h speed limit
Ignaz Voser believes that setting up a 20 km/h zone at the upper Postplatz would be the simplest solution, as he explains in the Zentralplus report. At 20 km/h, pedestrians have priority over vehicles. And he goes a little further. He dreams of a meeting zone from the "Platzhirsch" to the entrance to the Postplatz multi-storey car park.

Realistically, however, this proposed implementation is more likely to fall into the realm of utopia. The city council still does not seem to have decided on the direction in which the transport policy should go.