The Haría City Council faces three administrative complaints for the last La Pamela Festival, held on August 19 in Órzola. In addition to these 3 complaints against the City Council, the Civil Guard has processed another 5, against several companies that were in charge of different logistical aspects for the celebration. The reason for all of them was the lack of permission from the Coasts Demarcation, since there was an "occupation of the public maritime-terrestrial domain" that was not authorized. Specifically, by lacking that authorization, the City Council would have incurred in 3 different serious infractions, as explained by the Benemérita. The fines for these breaches of the Coasts Regulations can reach 300,000 euros.
As confirmed by the police force to La Voz, the Civil Guard has processed, in addition to these 3 complaints against the City Council, another 5 against 4 companies that were in charge of the logistical aspects of the festival. Among the "serious" infractions that the City Council would have committed by celebrating that festival on the Caletón Blanco beach, the first to which the complaints allude refers to the "unauthorized execution of works and installations" in that public domain, since a stage, a long bar, public bathrooms, etcetera, were placed. To this is added another complaint for having "announced and promoted the occupation of the beach" and a third, for having closed the beach. And the access to Caletón Blanco was even fenced off, which supposes an "interruption of public access", which also appears sanctioned in the Regulations.
Based on that same Regulation, the Benemérita has processed another 5 complaints to "private entities that provided the logistics" to the festival. These are specifically 4 companies, the one in charge of the portable bathrooms, the company that put the bar area, an image and sound company and a fourth that was denounced twice, once for having placed the stage and another for "putting the truck in" for the assembly and disassembly of that stage and the image and sound equipment that was on it. Also in this case, the companies would have committed serious infractions.
The permit was requested, but "without material time" to process it
Although the underlying problem in all these complaints is that the event lacked the authorization of Coasts, the City Council did request the permits. But not with enough time. The Civil Guard has indicated to La Voz that the Mayor's Office "processed late" those permits. Specifically, Haría delivered the necessary documentation for that authorization on Wednesday, August 17, when weeks before it had already been announced that the La Pamela Festival would be held on Friday, August 19. Thus, the permit "was neither given nor denied", because there was no "material time" for it, the Benemérita emphasizes.
For the Civil Guard, the "competence" in the area "is clear" and "if there is no report" from Coasts "no event can be held". In this sense, the police force points out that "not even" could the permit be considered granted by administrative silence, since for the cases in which the law contemplates that possibility there are deadlines and, in all cases, they are much longer than two days.
The City Council alleges that they were not ordered to "paralyze it"
The mayor of Haría, however, although he admits that that authorization was not requested "in a timely manner", alleges that they did not receive "any notification of paralysis" and that is why they decided to continue. "As of today, I have not received any notification from Coasts, nor from Seprona, nor from anyone", he has underlined. Marciano Acuña explained this on Thursday on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, in an intervention in which he also assured that the City Council has not yet been notified of any of those complaints.
Acuña has especially emphasized that, although this was the tenth edition of the festival, this was "the first time" that it was organized under the responsibility of his government team and it was also "the first time" that the City Council "formally requests authorization from Coasts". "Not in a timely manner, but we did", he has stressed.
"Coasts told us that they did not have time to request the sectoral reports from the Territorial Policy of the Canary Islands Government. At that moment, what we did was to request ourselves from the Cabildo of Lanzarote, which is the one that has the power to report on that area, if there is any environmental impediment, such as being in a protected area or that we are going to invade a ZEPA space", explained the mayor of Haría. Acuña has pointed out that, after that consultation, the northern Consistory received "favorable report from the Environment" of the Cabildo, as there was "no affectation of protected space in the area".
In parallel, he explained, the Seprona was carrying out "its investigations", but did not deliver "any notification of paralysis". Thus, the mayor argues that "if the Seprona understood that a crime was going to be committed there, it would have closed the festival directly", but "it did not". "I understood that the suspension was worse, because there were many people who were going to go up and so on, and I decided to continue with the event", added Acuña, who has insisted that the City Council did not receive "any notification" nor "any warning about that festival".
Thus, the mayor has affirmed that in the Consistory they are "calm". "The greatest tranquility is that we were in a space in which no protection zone was invaded, that is very important and that is what the Cabildo certifies to us". In addition, the mayor has defended that the City Council "extreme" the "security measures" for the event. "We also asked for protection from Teguise and, above all, also the cleaning, we had a cleaning battalion after it finished at 4 in the morning, 15 people and mechanical means and so on. That area that we love and like so much was left spotless, as we had found it".
