The Regional Administrative Court of the Marche rejected the request for compensation made by the owner of two amusement arcades located in Ancona against the municipality which had ordered the closure of the activities for violation of regional law no. 3/2017, which prohibits the location of amusement arcades within 500 meters of sensitive places such as schools and credit institutions.
The owner had acquired the two amusement arcades through a business branch transfer contract for which he had submitted the authorization applications for the two activities, but the Municipality had not responded within the thirty day period. Only later did he receive the municipal ordinance ordering the closure of the businesses.
The owner had appealed against the closure order to the TAR, which had rejected it, stating that the silent consent mechanism did not apply. Subsequently, he requested compensation for the damage suffered due to the delay in issuing the authorizations, arguing that, if the Municipality had acted promptly, he could have benefited from the transitional provisions of regional law no. 3/2017, continuing to operate until 31 December 2019.
The damage was quantified at €131,948.69, including both the loss of profit until the end of 2019 and the emerging damage for the costs incurred in purchasing the company.
The Marche Regional Administrative Court rejected the request for compensation, underlining that compensation for damages resulting from delay requires proof that the delay itself caused actual damage and that the expected measure would have had a favorable outcome. In the case in question, the Court found that it was not proven that the authorizations would have been issued even without the delay, since there were other impeding factors, such as the irregularities found during the checks by the Ancona Flying Squad.
Furthermore, the TAR specified that, regarding authorizations for amusement arcades, the Municipality’s control is not limited only to the premises, but also extends to the subjective requirements of the operators. In this specific case, there was no guarantee that these requirements had been met. The ruling stated that, in the absence of sufficient evidence that the authorizations would be granted and maintained, the compensation claim could not be accepted.
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