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Battle for the beach chair: Autumn holidays begin without baskets on the Baltic Sea!
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, beach chairs remain dismantled despite new regulations for coastal protection. What does this mean for tourists?
Battle for the beach chair: Autumn holidays begin without baskets on the Baltic Sea!
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the situation on the beaches remains tense even after the introduction of a new decree on the set-up deadline for beach chairs. Although a regulation came into force on March 15, 2025 that allows beach chairs to be left standing throughout the fall and winter seasons, there are hardly any beach chairs on the Baltic Sea during the fall holidays. Large rental companies are clearing away their beach chairs by mid-October, as is usual in previous years n-tv.
Matthias Treichel, a beach chair rental company from Warnemünde, is of the opinion that the new conditions are uneconomical. Alexander Fritz, another lender and spokesman for the tenant association in Warnemünde, also plans not to leave his baskets standing until mid-October. Before the decree, beach chairs were only allowed to be set up from the beginning of April to mid-October due to coastal protection and storm surges.
New regulations and their effects
The new decree, which was published in March, was actually intended to provide more planning security. However, critics emphasize that the regulations are impractical and that the strict requirements lead to lost income during the autumn holidays. The regulations in Poland are much more flexible, which is increasingly to the disadvantage of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. A beach chair rental company reported loss of income of up to 100,000 euros per season ndr notes.
The new regulation now allows the installation of mobile, easily transportable objects that do not require a building permit, even after the storm surge season begins on October 16th. However, operators must ensure they can remove their beach chairs within 12 hours if storm flood warnings are issued. However, it remains to be seen how many beach chair rental companies can and want to comply with this strict regime.
Difficulties and hopes on the beaches
The municipality and the rental companies are responsible for organizing the installation and dismantling of the beach chairs. However, it turns out that some operators from Heringsdorf on Usedom still want to leave their baskets until the end of October and have already submitted corresponding applications, which, according to the authorities, cannot always be approved. As the responsible State Office for Agriculture and the Environment (Stalu) explains, the necessary requirements were missing for the four applications received to set up beach chairs after October 15th, and no applications have yet been submitted in West Mecklenburg.
Basically, many beach managers want seasonal operation from the spring to the fall holidays, like the Warnemünder reported. The new regulation aims to enable beach chairs to be set up in the Baltic Sea resorts at an early stage. But reality shows that things often look different in practice.