Flexible and Legal; where do you draw the line

[Quillan]

[quote]This article from L'express gives a French view on the explosion in the number of Chambres D'hote. http://www.lexpress.fr/voyage/bonsplans/dossier/maisonhote/dossier.asp It also adds a new twist to...[/quote]

I was under the impression that you should be using raw materials, where ever possible, from your farm or, to quote "kitchen garden" which is something restaurants, or so I am told, cannot do. If they have chickens they can't use their eggs they must buy them. I believe this is because in the case of food poisoning all food must be traceable back to source.

[mascamps.com]

It's worse than that... just taking "local products" means, among other things,... no yogourts (unless you make your own), no fruit, restricted range of vegetables (in fact, none for us as they don't grow vegetables around here). I suspect that nobody fully meets that requirement.

No industrialisation... never mind the tins, how many of you can do without bottled milk? Or butter (unless you make your own)?

Those two restrictions are taken from the days when a CdH/TdH was an addon to a farm. I suspect that for the vast majority of CdH these days they are totally unrealistic.

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

It gets worse in our region... Wendy's just pointed out that there aren't any cows around here so no milk or butter at all. In fact, if the "local products" were applied strictly our guests would have to live on wine, grapes and goats' cheese because that's all that is produced locally.

Presumably you can't use spices either though we can manage basil as we have that in the garden.

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

Ian – Getting back to this law thing. The only government document (be it local or national) I can find is the Inforeg ones and it clearly states at the start of each document and I quote in the original language.:

 

For CDH

 

“Il n’existe pas de définition légale de la chambre d’hôtes mais celle-ci s’entend comme une chambre aménagée chez l’habitant en vue d’accueillir les touristes et de leur offrir des nuitées comprenant le petit déjeuner.”

 

And for TDH

 

“Il n’existe pas de définition légale de la table d’hôtes mais il s’agit de servir, dans une salle à manger de caractère familial, un repas traditionnel à base de produits régionaux, issus autant que possible de produits soit d’exploitations agricoles, soit de potagers. “

 

This clearly states there are no legal definitions for either and are dated 16/11/04.

 

What the government may or may not do in the future is anyone’s guess but that what it says stand at present. If however you have found something that overturns this on a French government website can you post the link so we can all read it.

 

PS sorry about the font guys.

[mascamps.com]

Sorry, no wine either. That's produced industrially.

I suspect that the only people who meet those requirements are wine producers who have a vegetable garden and a couple of chickens.

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

That's a very interesting article.

I see that a bit further down it says that there isn't a limit on the number of rooms at present which I suppose explains the existence of the odd 30 room CdH for sale that I've seen in the past. Also, I see that beyond 5 rooms you need to meet other regulations (for disabled access, fire, etc.) which explains why the sixth GdF room needs to meet them.

To be honest, this confuses me even more. Many posts ago I asked the question, why is the 5 room place down the road from us a hotel when the 6 room place down the other road is a CdH? OK, if the hotel has a restaurant then, unless it does a menu unique, it's definitely a hotel/restaurant but there are many hotels that don't have restaurants and only do breakfast ie a CdH in all but name.

It also mentions that the hotel people were pushing for all tourist accommodation to be classified which is the prelude to Ian's comment donkey's ago that the GdF people were going to be visiting everywhere to classify them. However, it would appear that, going by this article, they will have to give a star rating to places that are notionally a CdH but which could have a lot more rooms than their own 6 room limit.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

[quote]That's a very interesting article. I see that a bit further down it says that there isn't a limit on the number of rooms at present which I suppose explains the existence of the odd 30 room CdH for s...[/quote]

I told the B&B forum a while back, as to why there is a difference between having 5 & 6 bedrooms as a CDH, do pay attention Arnold !

Now for the rest of this (to my mind anyway)absolutely ridiculous thread about what is and what does not constitute a CdH a TDH or even a bluddy LBW for that matter. I have sat back and been totally gobsmacked by so much of it !

Keep out if it, I kept saying to myself (yes unbelievable ain't it !)I really do feel that it is an argument that can go on to the 'nth degree and still someone will want to "clarify" yet another point !

We are bluddy bed and breakfasts run under French regulations, and make no mistake about this, it is only GDF who help to make up these regulations, along with the govt dept for such things.

NO one else is implicated, GDF were the body evolved for this "fairly recent", initially amateur "enterprise", made up for the agricole and farmers etc (well surely you all know the story by now, so....)

Whether you can do this, feed guests that, it is all total b******s. If you need to offer guests something different, then do it, if you want one person more than your room allowance SHUT UP and do it, if you want to give food from Provence to people from Alsace SHUT UP and do it.

There are guidelines and there are regulations, don't ride continually roughshod over either and no one will say sod all, keep doing it wrongly and blatantly and I sincerely hope your business crashes around your ears, because you will tar us all with the same stupid brush.

Get real, you know (and if many don't know by now, gawd help yer)how you should operate, don't keep looking for little words in the "favour" you want them to appear to be.

It is very simple, you want to do B&B, you can have up to 15 people in 5 or 6 bedrooms, you do TDH and you should NOT act like a restaurant but more like a personal dinner party, no signs on the road saying "resto", no menus on the table offering differing prices and menus with ONLY residents allowed to eat. You can have dogs, you don't have to have dogs, you can even take budgies if you flipping want....well it's all pretty basic surely, so why the *%*@#~+* are some trying to complicate the bluddy biz, it ain't about running the Majestic in Cannes is it !!

]

Common sense !! but whatever you do, please don't think of it as a British B&B because that is strictly for the large part, interdit.

Bon saison.........

[Quillan]

Well there you go boys and girls, there’s me trying to get it down proper like and turning it in to ‘War and Peace’ and Miki has summed it all up brilliantly in a few paragraphs and whats more to the point.

 

Having looked around and read Miki’s comments here and in his emails to me I see it rather like this. If you want to make a living or more to the point reduce burning up of your savings you need to get bums in beds and one has to look at what gives the best return and it really does seem to be Gites de France. You only have to look at the threads on the old favourites like Visit France and French Connections to see that they are drying up but GDF just keeps going.

 

So I see it like this. We have been pushed in to being graded by our department and we can use GDF or Clévacances so if you are going to have them out for a 45€ inspection you might as well go the whole hog and sign up. Of course they have regulations for membership just as any other respectable organisation but providing you use your common sense you can live with them.

 

I am now checking to see when my GDF internet advert comes out and can’t wait to see us in their book next year.

 

Don’t get me wrong they are not the answer to all your problems but it gets you a lot closer to having the ‘Complete’ sign up over the whole of the summer.

 

As to the legality with regards to the EU and GDF I don’t give a toss providing they put bums in my beds.

[Coco]

Well said you two!!!  Perhaps that will bring an end to what has become an extremely tedious thread!!!

BTW - I offered cheddar cheese and Jacobs cream crackers to one of my guests last night and the others were given a selection of Normandy cheeses and salad (the poor old boy had hardly eaten all week, being his first visit out of the UK, and not having particularly  enjoyed the French food he'd had to endure on his travels)  Am I now classed as a restaurant?

[Quillan]

Cream crackers, I should coco. 4 nights of eating with 8 guests a sitting till 2 O’clock in the morning and 7:30 breakfasts god I’m knackered. Pat had a Red Cross parcel from the UK, a case of Jacobs, the French love them (really p1ss’s her off me giving them away to the punters) they go down a treat. Mind you I am sick to death of cassolette or whatever it’s called. You can buy it in big jars from Champions and warm it through. I add a bit of Worcestershire Sauce to liven it up a bit.

[Coco]

I can't remember the name of the place but there's a restaurant in Limoux where the menu price includes the wine as well (as much as you can drink too!) where they serve what my husband tells me is a very good cassoulet - have you tried it Chris?  We bought one of the tins from Champion once but we've never opened it yet, feeling sure it couldn't be as good as a real one; I've got some Lea & Perrins though, so may do so now!

It's our first night without guests for ten days too, and I've just found some GREEN asparagus in Champion!!!

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,

Re l'express article.

 It also adds a new twist to the regulations as to what may be served.

La table d'hôte aussi est soumise à des réglementations très strictes: il faut que le repas soit pris à la même table que la famille, qu'il n'y ait pas plus de clients que l'hôte ne peut en héberger, que le menu soit unique, qu'il soit fabriqué avec des produits locaux n'ayant subi aucune industrialisation. «Mais on a vu des propriétaires proposer du foie gras acheté au magasin du coin, raconte Pascale Pinaud. Et ça, c'est susceptible de requalification en hôtellerie-restauration.»

This is patently ridiculous. That's exactly what Miki and I were worried about. Gites de France says in their ads "Expect to find local produce". Nowhere in the definition - such as it exists - is it said that ONLY non industrial local produce may be used. However the paper has picked up the wrong end of the stick in true journalistic fashion and made a great histoire out of it. Sounds to me as if the paper has been nobbled by the Restaurant trade.

Sigh. So now I had better contact Gites de France and get them to warn off l'Expres

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Quillan,

You're right. NO laws have been passed to define CdH or TdH. I've been saying this consistently, as has Miki. What I HAVE said, and I stand by, is that there is a working definition written down in the document I quoted. I''ve given the references and I've typed the quotes, so I am not going to do it all over again.

That working definition may not (and I don't think it does) have gone through the french assembly, but it IS still useful for us to help us know where we stand.

It may well be that Miki finds the debate a waste of time and that others find it tedious. However, one thing that the Expres article makes clear is that many proprietors are acting as if no rules DID apply, and I'm pretty sure some of them are British and it may even be that some are reading this forum. So I think it's most definitely worthwhile pointing out that if we regularly and consistently act as if there were NO definitions, and therefore regularly and consistently offer several menus, we'll get the book thrown at us. Miki has said it, I've said it and the definition says it.

One can always reduce the discussion to the absurd , but you all know what's meant by one single meal. Think of it like that, and you won't go far wrong. What I get the feeling is that quite a few of you WANT to be able to go on offering several menus and are therefore seeking legal loopholes. Sorry, but I think that's a great error, and like Miki I don't want to be tarred with that brush.

[mascamps.com]

This afternoon when I was thinking about the Express article, I was thinking that the only consequence of having rules as strict as they appeared to be quoting would be that TdH couldn't realistically exist whilst at the same time you apparently could have a 200 room CdH. As you say Ian, that tone may well be originating from the restaurant trade although their friends in the hotel trade seem to have gone to the other extreme. If it were truly the case that only local "raw" produce could be on the menu, then we'd be limited to grapes and goats cheese which is obviously ridiculous.

Funnily enough I agree in part with both Ian and Miki on this one. It might be obvious to us what TdH is but it isn't obvious to either newcomers here or indeed to the people who police the rules (such as they are). For my part, I would really love a nice clear definition either directly in some law or a plain-French translation of such a law. Without that it is difficult to know where to draw the line.

Yes, Miki, you're right when you say that the odd vegetarian choice on the menu probably won't cause any bother but what if, by chance, doing that starts to attract a more predominately veggie group of guests so that, over a period of time, you find that whilst you started offering the veggie choice once a month it has become more like every other day?

It's also clear that plonking a big "restaurant" sign on the roadside is going too far, but at the other extreme offering the odd standalone meal may be OK. The snag is that if, for example, Ian offered it just now and again the chances are that he, as an ex-pro chef, would in due course end up with more and more of the standalone meals which clearly wouldn't be OK.

I do appreciate that it sounds (to all of us) incredibly simple: a TdH meal is intended to be a meal for an extended family. However, once you start saying that it's OK "now and again" to diverge from that you're sure to get someone come unstuck because what started out as an occasional exception for them gradually became their rule. I think that's unlikely to happen to the old hands at this game but it would be very easy for a newcomer to come unstuck.

If you do have clear rules, then at least you know that you're diverging from them whereas with the wooly "family meal" definition, it's not nearly so obvious. For instance, say this time next year I move firmly into the CdH/TdH camp: we would be cooking our family meals in the same way as we have always done ie with a choice of main course (Mexican or Greek this evening for instance) and a choice of dessert. I imagine that we would offer the same choices to our "extended family" as TdH because the underlying TdH principle is that it's a meal for family & friends yet one of the rules/guidelines is that there can be no choice. So, do I need to offer the guests a menu unique whilst the family have choices? Going by the rule the answer is a definite "yes" but on the other hand that seems, in my case, to be moving away from the principle of it being a meal for friends & family because we'd be treating the guests differently. I'm wondering if this specific issue needs a different thread?

 

Arnold

 

[Cerise]

Having just got back from a weekend in UK to find that you lot are still bickering over tedious meanings of of unclear and uninteresting small print, I think I won't bother to read any more here until the autumn.

Now I think I'll go and send an e-mail to my repeat booking French customers who are coming back for a week in August, to say that they had better go elsewhere as they can't have any of the interesting meals they enjoyed so much last time because I'm probably breaking every rule in the book by supplying them with the Indian meal they begged me to make - even had some of the ingredients from the UK. What now will I be guillotined?

Seriously, aren't all these nit picking threads getting just a bit tedious.  We all know what the regs are, and as Winterbunny points out there are plenty of unregistered, unlicenced and un-anything else you like places willing to pick up the trade if we aren't a bit flexible.  Miki is right - just get on with making a living, follow the rules with a bit of common sense added in and try not to upset the local officialdom.  Maybe I'm just lucky but everyone I've met in my area has been trying to encourage my business not throw spanners in the works.

Having got that off my chest, I'll go and iron a few sheets as nobody is eating anything at all tonight.

Hope you are all busy.

Maggi 

 

[mascamps.com]

I'm hoping that we'll all be far too busy to spend so much time here over the summer! As to the Autumn, well.... we've all found a way of filling the evenings.

 

Arnold