AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The city of Rotterdam on Wednesday said it would put a one-year freeze on the introduction of any more “dark stores” – small distribution centres in the city used as hubs for on-demand grocery services like Getir, Gorillas, Flink, Zapp and others.
The move follows a similar decision by Amsterdam last week as city residents push back against nuisances caused by the services that promise delivery in 10 minutes or less. These have mushroomed in major cities around Europe since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everybody knows them by now: darkened windows, disruption to the flow of traffic in shopping streets, noise from loading, reckless bike delivery people and nuisance from the waiting drivers,” said Rotterdam city council woman Roos Vermeij in a statement.
“There’s nothing wrong in principle with fast delivery, but how it’s being done in practice is bloody irritating.”
Amsterdam last week put a one-year freeze on further dark store openings, citing complaints from the public.
The city estimated there were 31 dark stores within its limits, and Rotterdam said on Thursday it has 13 “and growing fast”, all established within the past half year.
A spokesperson for the city said existing stores would not be required to close.
“As a business we would not exist if people did not want to use our service,” Getir said, noting that it has created jobs for local workers.
“The very local nature of our business means that we want to be a good neighbour and we work hard to be one. We have an open communication policy and dedicated teams to ensure we respond quickly to any enquiries.”
Getir, as well as Germany-headquartered Flink and Gorillas have said they intend to work with the city governments to resolve the problems. Britain’s Zapp could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
