Restaurants, bars and canteens and even catering companies will be compelled, by law, to offer drinking water to customers who request it, according to an amendment proposed by the former Energy minister, Virgil Popescu, which assumes “the free supply of drinking water through the distribution network for consumers in restaurants, canteens and catering services”.
According to the draft law, they will have the obligation to provide, upon request and free of charge, drinking water from the tap:
a) the authorities and institutions of the central and local public administration for the people present in their premises;
b) economic operators that offer public catering services for their own customers;
c) the employer for employees.
By public food service, the authors of the project understand “the activity of preparing, preparing, presenting and serving drinks for them in specialized units”.
At the same time, according to the project, public authorities and catering companies – bars, restaurants, cafes, therefore – will have the obligation to display in a place accessible and visible to the public the following notice: “This unit offers, on request and free of charge, water drinkable from the tap”.
Another draft law issued six years ago, the status of which is still unknown, provided that at most once a year and upon request, the local public health authority would check free of charge, by taking samples from taps in homes, compliance with the quality parameters of drinking water in homes.
If it is found that the quality parameters are not respected, the tenant will benefit, on request, from a water filter whose cost is settled by the town hall in the situation where the non-conformity is generated by the internal network, but also by external network if the implementation of remedial measures takes more than 7 days.
The authors of the draft bill show that in Romania there is currently no free water quality testing method, the minimum cost of a water analysis being 250 lei. Under these conditions, Romania is among the last countries in the European Union in terms of tap water consumption.
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