Canirac Seeks Extra Hour for Cancún Restaurants; Municipality Refuses

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Cancún’s restaurant industry is asking the municipality to allow businesses to stay open one hour later, both in the Hotel Zone and in the city’s urban neighborhoods, but local officials are rejecting the request, saying municipal rules do not permit extensions.

Perla Flores Navarro, president of the Canirac restaurant chamber in Cancún, said the current schedule causes logistical problems. Restaurants need between 45 minutes and an hour before the mandatory closing time to stop admitting customers, close out cash registers and clean the premises, she said. That means an establishment licensed to operate until 2 a.m. must cut off service at 1 a.m., an hour of lost sales. It also leaves late-night tourists and hospitality workers who finish shifts in the early morning with few dining options, she added.

The chamber said about 67 restaurants typically require the extra hour. To break the impasse, Canirac has proposed strengthening public safety measures in the dining corridors, including connecting video surveillance systems and implementing private-security protocols.

Alberto Covarrubias, the municipality’s inspections director, said the city has received multiple requests from bars and restaurants for extended hours and has denied them all. He pointed out that the current limits — 2 a.m. in the urban zone and 3 a.m. in the tourist strip — have been in force since June 15, 2025, and that paying extra for late hours does not make operation beyond those times legal.

Covarrubias also said two downtown Cancún venues have been closed in the last 45 days and warned that repeat violators will not have their operating licenses renewed for the next fiscal year.