The City of Jerusalem announced, on its Facebook page, an initiative to try to give a boost to local restaurants and other businesses in the entertainment industry, by turning the "hot" streets downtown into a boardwalk at night so that restaurants can put tables out in the streets to have more seating. Live music will also be out at different spots. On the Facebook page the list of streets and exact times are listed, and it starts tomorrow and will run through August.

The issue is that restaurants have been allowed to open, but people are hesitant to go to restaurants and eat indoors. The restaurants mostly do not have a large enough area indoors with enough seating to do reasonable business, so even though they were allowed to open, business in this fashion is still extremely difficult. This nighttime arrangement is meant to give them a big boost for their businesses, and with the added entertainment and boardwalk style, should be a big draw for people to go enjoy.

To me it seems like a nice initiative to help businesses get back on their feet and get people out again.

Not everyone agrees. But I guess that is not a surprise. You can't make everyone happy all of the time.

Kikar is reporting that the Eida Hachareidis is calling for this to be shut down or face protests that
will shut the city.

The Eida believes that this initiative is a major breach that will turn the streets of Jerusalem into a boardwalk with entertainment with the most serious of sins along with a major unbearable source of pain for the haredi neighborhoods that are nearby and their houses and neighborhoods will be turned into a den of thieves.

The Eida says they cannot allow this to happen, to desecrate the holy city and to turn Jerusalem into a breached city with no wall, and to ruin the little that is left after all the breaches that have happened previously.

They call on the city to cancel these plans or they will do everything possible to put a kibosh on them and prevent the desecration. A spokesperson for the Eida threatened serious protests that will shut down the city.

The City of Jerusalem responded with wonder wondering what their problem is as the intent is to give a boost to local business and help people with their parnassa after the disaster from Corona.

In recent years they have mostly been ineffective with their protests, and my guess is that this is just lip service and we won't see any significant hafganot over this. I am not sure what serious sins take place by a couple sitting to have dinner while listening to music and seeing a performance. These might be regular sins, as they happen all the time in many places. I do not know what about this turns it into a serious sins. While some individual places might be worse than most , my guess is the serious sins were happening in those places anyway even before this.