The mayor of Yaiza, all the councilors who were part of the Governing Board in 2008, the former secretary of the City Council, the technician who intervened in the file and the official of the Cabildo who reported on the classified activities license, claim that they did not know that the Stratvs winery had been operating for months when they granted this permit. And they were not even aware that there was also a shop and a restaurant, despite the fact that many of them had attended the opening party of the facilities more than half a year before, which in the trial they referred to as a "presentation" party.
"Nothing made me think that it was working. It was impeccable," declared Gladys Acuña during the trial, who, along with other councilors, attended that party held seven months before approving the activity license. And according to her statement, it was five years later, when she was already testifying as an accused in this case, that she had "knowledge" that in the complex there was also "a restaurant that did not have a license." For his part, former councilor Leonardo Rodríguez assured that he only made a "token appearance" at that party that took place in mid-2008. "I was there for the two minutes of rigor and left," said the then Councilor for Urban Planning, who maintained that he did not see the interior of the winery.
"I didn't know the winery. I saw a house with some trees but I didn't go in" and "of course I didn't see the restaurant or the shop," he insisted. In addition, when asked by his lawyer, he added that "he is not an architect nor does he have knowledge of measurements" to know that what was built, as the investigation of this case maintains, was 12,000 square meters, when only the execution of a 900-meter winery-warehouse and the rehabilitation of a pre-existing protected house had been authorized, which according to the prosecution was demolished and replaced by a larger one.
"They invited all the cream of the crop from Lanzarote and the Canary Islands"
As for the other councilor accused in the case who attended that "presentation" party of Stratvs, Evaristo García, he declared that they invited "all the cream of the crop from Lanzarote and the Canary Islands" to the event and that he also attended, because "they invited everyone." However, when his lawyer asked him if he was aware of whether Stratvs started operating from then on, he replied that he did not know, because it was not "his area."
In addition, he added that for him "it was not even a transit area" the place where the winery is located, so he "had no knowledge" that it was already operating when he voted in favor of granting the activity license. Even, after denying that anyone had spoken to him previously to influence his vote, he assured that he did not even know that this point was going to be discussed "before sitting down" at the Governing Board.
"Do you have any relationship with Juan Francisco Rosa? Why were you invited?" asked the judge who presides over the Criminal Chamber of the TSJC, after finishing the interrogation of his lawyer, who was the only one to whom the former councilor answered questions. "They invited everyone. I know him because we all know each other here in Lanzarote," he replied. "And was it an opening party?" the magistrate insisted. "For me it was a presentation," replied the former councilor.
The existence of the restaurant and the shop, "the assessment of a technician"
In addition to not detecting that the facilities were already operating when that party was held in May 2008, seven months before obtaining the activity license, all the accused assured that they also did not see a negative report that was inside the municipal file, and that warned that in the Stratvs complex there was not only a winery, which was the only thing for which authorization was requested, but also "a retail store and a cafeteria." "It says so, but it is an assessment of the technician and it was not corroborated by anyone," declared the former secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, during the trial, when they showed him that report during the hearing. Thus, he also denied that he knew that the shop and the restaurant existed when he reported on the activity license, because he maintains that he did not see that report and because, according to him, "no one" had "corroborated" what the Health technician warned in it.
And the technician of Classified Activities of Yaiza, Andrés Morales, also declared that he had not read that report, despite the fact that during the trial he was the only one who admitted to having had access to the entire file. But in the case of this negative opinion - which the prosecutor stressed was found in a drawer in his office, next to the rest of the file, when the Civil Guard carried out a search in the City Council - Morales assured that he had not seen it before.
In addition, both Andrés Morales and the rest of the technicians who intervened in the file declared on the first day of the trial held this Monday that they were unaware that the work was already completed when the activity license was granted, which should have been processed before the building permit and, therefore, before the construction of these facilities. "I was limited to the activity license, I don't know if another building permit will come later or not," Morales declared, despite the fact that that building permit had been granted by the City Council nine years earlier, under the Mayoralty of Reyes.
No execution project with the work finished
"No idea," replied the technician of Classified Activities of the Cabildo, Manuel Jesús Spínola, when the prosecutor asked him if he knew that the work was already done when he reported on the activity license. In his case, on two occasions he requested that more documents be provided to report, given that initially they only gave him a basic project, later supplemented with the installation project and subsequently with an "annex" on the measures to avoid noise pollution. However, they did not give him the execution project, since the property alleged that they were finishing preparing it, despite the fact that by then the construction of the Stratvs complex had already been completed.
"I don't need the execution project for anything," Spínola replied to explain why he issued his report without that document. In addition, the technician prepared that opinion only one day after the property sent the last document that he had requested, to adapt the acoustic conditions. "It was not a project, it was a clarifying annex of four or five pages," defended Manuel Jesús Spínola to justify the speed with which he issued the report after receiving that "annex." To this, he added that as the activity was carried out in La Geria, there were "very few possibilities of disturbing" with the noises of this industry.
Even, regarding his speed to resolve, he defended that they are "very proud" of "how the procedures have been streamlined" in the Cabildo after the legislative changes on the powers, although he specified that in this case he does not remember if the last document arrived "the day before, a week before or a month before." "Every day we had pressure from everyone to speed things up," "especially the technicians," "a huge stress," he added when asked by his lawyer, before denying that he received any type of "influence" or offer of "an award" to treat Rosa's winery file with greater diligence.
Rosa, "like just another neighbor"
Although both the mayor and the councilors who were part of her Governing Board in 2008 refused to answer the Public Prosecutor and the private and popular accusations, they all spoke about their relationship with Juan Francisco Rosa when asked by their own lawyers. In the case of Gladys Acuña, the president of the Chamber also asked her about that relationship, to which the mayor replied that she is not a "friend" of the businessman. "If you ask me if I know him, yes. But relationships are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Institutionally speaking," she clarified.
For his part, Leonardo Rodríguez gave explanations about the calls he exchanged with Rosa, and which are incorporated into this procedure, denying that they had any relation with the granting of the activity license to Stratvs. And he also denied having arranged to eat with the businessman, despite the fact that they were talking about it in one of those conversations. The former councilor pointed out that in any case they had coincided "at some event," such as a "mass dinner" held in Puerto Calero, which they also talked about in one of those calls.
Similarly, Leonardo Rodríguez denied that he went to Rosa's house to deliver the activity license the day after it was approved in the Board. In this regard, he assured that what he said in a telephone conversation that he was going to take him, the day after that Board held in December 2008, was "a Christmas greeting", as he "did with everyone", "every year", and not the license.
"I had no friendship," assured Leonardo Rodríguez, who insisted that he "never" arranged to eat with Rosa "alone, to discuss some issue of the City Council." "Neither with him nor with anyone," he added. According to the former councilor, his relationship with the businessman was like that of "just another neighbor" and "he treated him the same, like anyone." And something very similar replied another of the councilors who intervened in that Governing Board and who is also accused in the case, Juan Lorenzo Tavío, who declared that Rosa is "an acquaintance of the municipality, of the island." "When we go to the wake, as I say, we greet each other, but I have no personal relationship," he said.
For his part, the prosecutor Ignacio Stampa stressed that in addition to granting that activity license, despite the negative reports that were in the file, the conditions established in that license were not verified afterwards either. One of them was that a verification visit was made, which was never carried out. A visit that would have allowed to verify what the councilors did not detect at the "presentation" party, that is, that the facilities far exceeded what was authorized, that there was a restaurant that did not even have a building permit and that the complex had actually been operating for months.