Where to set up a restaurant in Shanghai?

With the internalization of the city, Shanghai has seen rapid expansion of foreign restaurants sprawling everywhere in the city. You may be able to find in Shanghai any type of tastes existing in the world. There are still fresh foreign investments made in the catering service every year.
However on the other hand, Shanghai is also struggling to keep its air and environment clean up to the expectation of foreign expats living and working in Shanghai. For that purpose, catering service has come under scrutiny and restriction in regard of the location of restaurants in order to prevent pollution in the downtown areas of the city.
In 2004, Shanghai promulgated a special regulation, entitled “Administrative Measures on Prevention of Pollution on Environment Stemming from Catering Services” in a bid to curb pollution that may be caused by restaurants. One of the major measures adopted therein is to regulate the location of restaurants.
1. Newly constructed places to be used for catering service in the central downtown area, new towns and key townships shall meet the following requirements:
(1) In the large block of residential properties, such new catering service places shall be independent of residential buildings;
(2) The buildings in which such places dwell shall have pipes dedicated for ventilating and emitting fumes and smokes and other pollution-preventing conditions;
(3) If the building in question is not more than 24 meters in height, the discharging mouth of the fume-ventilating pipe shall be positioned no lower than the highest of the building; in the case of a building of more than 24 meters in height, the fume-discharging mouth shall be designed in compliance with pollution-preventing requirements, the details of which shall be separately worked out and published by the municipal environment protection bureau;
(4) Fume-discharging mouth shall be kept at a distance of at least ten (10) meters from residential properties, hospital and schools.
2. Opening restaurants in existing buildings shall be subject to the following rules:
(1) in the central downtown area, new towns and key townships, restaurants that discharge oil and fume shall not be opened;
(2) in the central downtown area, new towns and key townships, restaurants opened in non-residential buildings shall be in compliance with requirements (2), (3) and (4) mentioned in Section 1 above. In particular, if the distance of the fume-discharging mouth to residential properties, hospital and schools does not comply with the requirement (4) above, such distance shall not be less than five (5) meters and the written consent thereon shall be obtained from the owners or users of the adjacent or nei***oring privately-owned houses
In 2007, Shanghai government has stepped up its implementation rules for the Law of the Republic of China on Preventing Pollution on Air, in which it is reiterated that in the central downtown area, new towns and key townships, restaurants that discharge oil and fumes shall not open in residential buildings unless it is originally planned for catering service. Rooms planned for restaurants in mixed-use building and residential buildings and newly constructed places to be used for catering service shall have facilities and devices to prevent pollution caused by oil and fumes.
All those provisions have made it necessary for restaurant investors to be careful when you sign lease contracts for premises or buy properties to be used as restaurant business places. It has become an important work to conduct basic due diligence investigation as to the function and planned use of the places intended for catering services.