Lessons from the City of Paris' COVID-19 Recovery Plan

Sheena Jardine-Olade

Business or Culture?

The City of Paris recently released its COVID-19 recovery plan (en français ici) which allocates up to €200 million for local cultural businesses, organizations and other key players. It is one of the first municipal recovery plans to highlight and address the serious short, medium and long-term impacts of the pandemic on the nightlife economy.

By contrast in Canada, the specific needs, economic circumstances, and business models of the cultural and night-time economies are a blindspot for Canadian policies and now relief programs. The government doesn’t acknowledge nightlife as a vital cultural and economic component that contributes at a local and national level. Nightlife businesses provide social infrastructure that is used by many, and often offer safe havens for minority and marginalized groups to learn and explore their identities. Nightlife culture weaves inseparably through a city's fabric, contributing to its character in ways that many cultural institutions currently compensated by Federal programs haven't done for decades.

To-date, the majority of Canada’s current relief funding is directed to organizations with existing relationships to national funding bodies. Many of the businesses, groups, and individuals who derive their income from the cultural activity that happens in the nighttime economy do not have the same financial networks to leverage. Although there is some additional support soon to be available (approximately $20 million), this funding will do little to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the sector across the country.

In Canada, the nightlife sector must therefore rely on wage subsidies, rent-relief which requires commercial landlords to apply (many who have already refused), or hard-to-qualify-for loans for support through the crisis. Artists and workers, like many Canadians, are now eligible for Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments of $2000/monthly. Whether CERB will remain in place as other sectors reopen while the nighttime economy remains at a standstill is a pressing question.  

This confusing relief structure reveals the gaps in the federal government's understanding of the culture sector, gig-work and the night-time economy more broadly. Additionally, many nightlife businesses—venues, clubs, bars, concerts, festivals and more—aren't seen as providers of cultural programming.  

Special attention to the night time economy

The Parisian Recovery Plan (PRP) states, "attention will be paid to those in nightlife," a sentiment conspicuously absent from other municipal recovery strategies. The acknowledgement isn't empty; the PRP outlines support for the culture sector and those actors in the NTE. Broken down into five sections (health measures, space adaptation, economic aid, support for works, and job creation), the Plan is both scalable and replicable with many of the nightlife support action items, easily applicable to a Canadian context.

Implementing safe procedures and practices

The City of Paris will help merchants and artisans configure spaces that adhere to physical distancing measures. The Plan also mentions standardized signage to educate people about new social norms.

With people’s capacity for information (and misinformation) reaching saturation points, city-wide standards would lighten some of the burden off of business owners who feel trepidation on how to proceed. With safety on everyone's mind, working with the industry to cultivate spaces that adhere to health standards would be beneficial for everyone.

Helping businesses maintain profits

A majority of nightlife businesses around the world have reported being close to insolvency, which will be further aggravated by new capacity restrictions (up to 50% reduction).The PRP addresses some of these issues by allowing restaurants and cafes to extend their terraces free of charge until September (and then moving forward on a case-by-case basis). In Vilnius, Lithuania, which experiences short summers like most cities in Canada, restaurants are allowed to reconfigure public space to accommodate patrons, and have done so quite successfully.

The PRP also outlines a six-month commercial rent exemption for businesses in crisis. The current Canadian federal program of rent relief is dependent solely on the landlord opting-in. Commercial tenants have expressed increasing frustration with landlords who have decided not to apply for the 75% rent subsidy. Monitoring and enforcing temporary rent exemptions (possibly incentivized), would guarantee better protection for tenants who are currently unable to meet rent demands. Municipal intervention is critical, because shuttered stores and desolate streets are incompatible with the desire to create vibrant, liveable cities.

Support for artists and workers in nightlife

Paris' plan will allow funds to be directly given to nightlife institutions, workers, private and poorly subsidized cultural players. Administration by the City would allow for immediate funding relief, while granting organizations and nonprofits set up to distribute more financial support.

Looking Ahead

One of the best qualities of the PRU is that it looks ahead to rebuild and improve the nightlife/cultural sector. It provides arts education for the elderly and youth and communication support for when activities resume. By creating more of these opportunities for all artists, even those without affiliations or memberships to cultural organizations, Paris is investing in nightlife’s current and future players.

Although the Paris Recovery Plan could have pushed further with its support of nightlife and the nighttime economy, it acknowledges nightlife and the importance of nightlife protection. It also promotes education and job creation—a refreshingly proactive approach to COVID-19 municipal planning.

Furthermore, the PRU's coverage of the nightlife industry and networks supports what many have long known: nightlife isn't only about protecting revenues and tourism. A healthy nightlife creates attractive streetscapes, saves jobs and increases safety that desolate main streets cannot provide. Protecting nightlife also safeguards the special and unique spaces that many use to create, exchange knowledge, and connect. 

Federal, provincial and municipal governments need to see nightlife culture as an essential component of a city. Many who understand this are searching for answers to the unprecedented and complex issues facing businesses, workers, artists, and creators. Now is the best time to share your ideas and bring attention to the current critical state of nightlife in your municipality. To work collaboratively with city council, your local Business Improvement Areas (BIAs)/ Business Revitalization Zones (BRZs) or non-profit/grassroots organizations to save some of the places that contribute, possibly unnoticed or disregarded, to our communities. Plans like Paris' are forging ways to create workable solutions for the current nightlife crisis. Whether the Plan is idealistic or falls short, it's a great start—an example of a municipality working to stimulate and create what's needed to protect its urban fabric.