If you have been to Germany, you’ll have notice the strict closing time (8pm) for all kinds of shops, stores and malls all places except for larger rail stations and airports, as well as petrol station shops. When the first shop in Munich with longer opening hour opened in Munich in 2014, it made national news and newspapers from Berlin (where there are a number of such stores) published patronising articles welcoming the Bavarian capital into the club of metropolis’, tz.de reports in its printed edition today, July 8, 2016.

Stores that are open longer in Germany (read Berlin), are called “Späti” (short for Spätkauf – shop late - which means “Laty”, and sounds just as lame on German as it does on English). Munich’s Späti is located at the Baaderstr. 15, near the trendy Glockenbach quarter. It is open until 10pm on weekdays and until 3am on weekends, but it looks as if it will close on August 31, since the lease for the space won’t be prolonged. Owner Franz Huemer (66) doesn’t understand why. There have never been any police interventions or complaints by neighbours. It seems that the anti-Späti lobby works in mysterious ways. A few years ago there has been a referendum in Bavaria to prolong opening hour, but it failed.

Huemer is currently looking for space around Glockenbach to move his store. When he closes, the closest thing Munich will have to aSpäti is the green cube kiosk at the Münchner Freiheit station in Schwabing, the"Deubl Glass Cube". Below is a video of singer Rea Garvey explaining the Späti concept (in Berlin) to One Republic.