Enclosures for barsand restaurants

A bar or restaurant terrace is enclosed with glass curtains on the sides and a retractable roof or pergola on top. First check whether it stands on private land or on the street: on the street, the Alicante bylaw only allows removable elements and two closed sides at most. With more walls, smoking is no longer allowed either.

The usual combination for hospitality enclosures is glass curtains along the sides, which stack at one end when the weather is good, and a roof that opens: a retractable roof, a bioclimatic pergola or a fabric pergola. That way you can serve in wind and rain, and on a sunny day everything is fully open again within minutes.

The technical side is the easy part. What shapes the project most is the legal framework: the municipal bylaw if the terrace takes up the street, the smoking law if the enclosure turns the space into an indoor one, and fresh air supply when there are a lot of people inside. This guide goes through all three using the rules in Alicante.

The first question is who owns the ground. Seating on the pavement, in a square or on a promenade occupies public space and needs the council's permission to use the street. In Alicante that permission is governed by a specific bylaw, which sets out which elements you can put up, at what size and in which streets.

A terrace on private land, such as the venue's own courtyard, a roof terrace or a setback in the facade, does not take up the street. The street bylaw does not apply there, but planning rules and the venue's activity licence do, and the enclosure is usually processed at the town hall as building work or an installation, as our page on enclosure permits explains. What paperwork LUNEKS handles for terraces on private land

The Alicante bylaw on temporary use of public streets, in the current text published in the provincial gazette BOP no. 110 on 12 June 2026, defines an open air terrace in article 13 as one that is not covered, roofed or enclosed by permanent walls. It only allows temporary, portable or removable installations, and with them no more than two side panels.

Articles 27 and 28 list the permitted elements and their limits. Portable screens, covered pergolas and vertical enclosures are only allowed in squares, parks, promenades, roundabouts and boulevards with wide pavements, and always with two sides left open. On top of that, the installations in article 28 require an approved layout plan (Plan Ordenador) for that public space first.

In practice, outdoor seating on an Alicante street cannot be closed in with fixed glass curtains on all four sides. Where the street allows it, you can shelter two sides and cover the area with a removable structure. The amendment approved in May 2026 set the high season for terraces from 1 May to 1 November and left articles 13, 27 and 28 unchanged, which is where the figures below come from.

Spain's Law 28/2005 on health measures against smoking bans smoking in enclosed bars, restaurants and other eating establishments (article 7, letter u). Its article 2.2 defines an open air space in hospitality as any space without a roof, or a roofed space surrounded at the sides by no more than two walls or partitions.

That gives the rule venue owners work by: with a roof and three or four sides closed, the space stops being open air and smoking is not allowed. The law does not distinguish between a masonry wall and a glass enclosure, so a covered terrace closed with curtains on three sides is best treated as indoors. When in doubt, the health inspectorate decides, not the installer.

A change is on the way. On 21 July 2026 the Council of Ministers approved a bill extending smoke free areas to terraces of bars and restaurants, according to the Spanish Ministry of Health. Until parliament passes it and it appears in the BOE, the 2005 law and its two wall rule still apply.

An enclosed area with forty people eating builds up heat, humidity and smells quickly. As a reference point, Spain's Regulation on Thermal Installations in Buildings (RITE) places restaurants, cafés and bars in air quality category IDA 3 and sets an outdoor air supply of 8 dm³/s per person for it. Where smoking is allowed, that minimum doubles.

At that rate, forty customers need about 320 litres of outdoor air per second. A well planned enclosure helps you get there without machinery: leave the glass curtains slightly open in one or two sections, slide the retractable roof back a few centimetres, or tilt the louvres of a bioclimatic pergola to let hot air out. If the venue has air conditioning, the installer needs to account for the enclosed area.

There is no single enclosure that suits every venue. The choice depends on where the seating area is, how many months a year it trades and whether customers want to look at the street or the sea. These are the combinations that work best for bars and restaurants on the coast:

• Street terrace in Alicante: removable elements on two sides and, if the street is wide enough, a removable pergola or awning.
• Terrace on private land in front of the venue: glass curtains across the front and sides, with a retractable roof to open up the sky in good weather.
• Rooftop or penthouse restaurant: a bioclimatic pergola for shade and glass curtains against the wind.
• Beach bar or seafront venue: glass curtains that stack away completely when the wind drops, so the sea view stays.
• Dining room also used in winter: insulated double glazed curtains and a fixed roof.