The “dark stores”, these places where products delivered a few minutes after being ordered online are stored, are warehouses and not businesses, the government resolved in a decree published this Friday in the Official Gazette.
Therefore, these premises may be forced to close if the Local Urban Plan (PLU) prohibits this type of activity at home, a victory for the municipalities that demanded the regulation of this activity, the day after a decision by the Council of State to enter the same address.
The Council of State ruled on Thursday that the “dark shops” were “warehouses” within the meaning of the Parisian urban code and local urban plan, agreeing with the Paris city council.
These express delivery companies, which had won a first legal battle in October 2022, “had to file a declaration with the city council to use premises that were originally traditional businesses as” dark shops “, ruled France’s highest court.
In Paris, the companies Frichti and Gorillas, belonging to the Turkish company Getir, will therefore have to separate from nine “dark stores”, which jeopardizes the future of the activity in the capital.
The publication of the decree in the Official Gazette also has a national scope. Therefore, the delivery companies must comply with the local urban plans of the warehouses in the different municipalities in which they are located. They might have to close a certain number of them.
Source: BFM TV
