Cape Town: The Events Permit Office of City of Cape Town is calling on residents, event organisers and the interested parties to comment on the amendments made to the City’s Events By-Law 2016.
The Draft Events Amendment By-Law proposed in the year 2024 is going out for public comment for a month from Friday, November 01, 2024. The draft by-law seeks to replace some conditions in the existing Events By-Law of 2016.
Reportedly, the proposed amendments would address the regulation of events based on risk impact. Relax some requirement parameters to allow Cape Town to attract more major events without compromising safety and include provisions to deal with fraudulent activities, which may impact the safe hosting events.
The draft Events Amendment By-law 2024 majorly seeks to provide for the classification of types of events as city protected the events. It also provides council exemption from specific by-laws for city protected events.
Furthermore it ensures to empower the Event Permit Officer with the discretion to make certain decisions related to event safety requirements and deal with fraudulent and dishonest actions.
Considering this Chairperson of the City of Cape Town Safety and Security Portfolio Committee – Concillor Mzwakhe Nqavashe said that the events landscape has transformed drastically since 2016. He mentioned that as the City, they always want the regulations to align with the industry’s evolution. The amendments to the by-law will assist us in removing any event red tape or obstacles that detract from the event experience for organisers, participants and international event audiences.
Nqavashe aslo confirmed that the want to ensure that event permit applications are assessed on their individual impact, risk profile and magnitude and move away from a one-size-fits-all approach that goes against the goals to create an enabling environment for the events to grow across the city.
He stated further that the intention behind doing this all is to do all while still maintaining high safety standards at all times. In this regard, the by-law will equip us with mechanisms to deal with anyone found to be engaging in fraudulent or dishonest activities that may impact on the safe, satisfactory or proper hosting of an event. However, the public participation will run until November 30, 2024.