The confrontation is served on the quiet beach of Papagayo. It seems that even the southernmost cove of the island cannot be reached through the rough lane that leads hundreds of tourist cars and locals to its shore, more conflict than that of the visitors themselves descending between hesitant and fearful of possible falls, due to the slope that leads to the sand of the beach, loaded with their belongings and ready to spend a day of sun and swimming.
But tension is in the air between the owners of the three beach bars established at the entrance to the beach. The most outraged are Luciano Borges and Cruz González, a couple who runs one of the three beach bars in Papagayo and who are, according to them, in a critical situation.
On Tuesday, May 16, Luciano was on Mujeres beach with his two coolers selling soft drinks and ice cream to bathers when two municipal police officers approached him, as he explained to LA VOZ "they took my coolers as if I were a criminal, they took them to the car and left me with nothing".
It is not the first time that the local police confiscate Luciano's coolers, the fight comes from behind.
This couple started selling soft drinks and ice cream on the beach more than twenty years ago in Papagayo, Mujeres, Puerto Muelas, Los Pozos, el Congrio and las Eras. In the late 80s, the area was declared a Natural Monument of Los Ajaches. With that declaration came the prohibition of building in a protected natural area. The street vendors eventually had to leave and only those who could prove that they had lived in Papagayo since before the declaration of protected space, managed to stay. This is the case of Luciano and Cruz and also of the owners of the other two beach bars.
Luciano in the mid-nineties, specifically in December 1995, requested a license from the Yaiza town hall to continue selling on the beach. He considered that he had an acquired right to do so for having been traveling the area with his coolers for so many years, so he submitted a letter to the council, which according to Luciano, was never answered by any municipal authority. He went to court in search of a solution and filed an administrative appeal in 1998 against the Yaiza town hall.
The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands issued a favorable judgment three years later, in which the seller's right to have the Yaiza town hall respond to his request following the ordinances that the council has was recognized and they considered that "the administrative silence" of the institution goes against the law. According to the couple's lawyer, parliamentarian Alejandro Díaz, "the law says, in matters of licensing, that administrative silence is positive. Since the town hall has not responded to Luciano's request, it has to issue the corresponding certification and that certification is the license".
With his sentence in hand, Luciano and Cruz have waited for the response of the City Council, which never came and when they have gone to talk to the mayor, they have been given the runaround. So after several years without selling on the beaches, during the past Holy Week Luciano returned to the sand to trade with his ice cream and soft drinks without a license. "I had been selling for a week when they took our coolers, but the next day we spoke with a councilman who called the head of the municipal police and told him to return them to us". Luciano recovered his work tool and returned to the southern beaches, until 10 days ago they took away the refrigerators he carries on his shoulder again.
"That same day the mayor told us that on Wednesday he was going to Tenerife, that we should go on Friday, that he would talk to a councilman and maybe they would let me sell temporarily and only on the beaches they want, where I don't eat a thing". Last Friday they returned to the town hall as Mayor José Francisco Reyes had summoned them, but he was in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, "today I go there and I find that the mayor is not there, they are abusing me. This is not right because this is the food of my house, if he has it safe I don't have it safe".
The couple assures that they cannot live on the income they get from the beach bar in Papagayo because "we don't make even 10 euros a day". The premises are deteriorated, without plastering the walls, without indications, beyond a modest sign, that may make the tourist think that he is in front of an establishment selling drinks and ice cream and, as the owners themselves recognize, without any license, neither of opening, nor of sale of perishable products, "but we pay taxes" explains Cruz, who receives in the beach bar, place in which she and Luciano usually live, to her grandchildren every weekend.
The couple assures that they have tried to reform their beach bar but that the town hall has not let them, "they have always put obstacles, that if I have the wall higher than it should be... always obstacles, but those next door have done everything they wanted".
War with their neighbors and with the town hall
Luciano and Cruz assure that the owners of the neighboring beach bars make their lives impossible and they are the ones who call the municipal police as soon as they see him go down to the beach with his coolers. Luciano goes further and dares to affirm that the neighbors "make hidden calls to the police saying that there are two Moroccans stealing in Papagayo, being a lie, so that the municipal police come and see me selling on the beach" and adds that "they do all this because they have influences in the town hall".
The security guards who watch the beaches of Los Ajaches, according to Cruz, also call the police as soon as they start selling "this is a persecution of the town hall against us, they have us harassed" assures the couple.
One of the owners of the adjoining beach bars, Ángel Ramón Martín, recognizes that he usually calls the local police because, as he explains, he pays a lot of taxes and he is not willing to let Luciano take away his clientele by selling on the beach and illegally. "I have no interest in selling on the beach because I already have my terrace, but I have told the mayor that if he allows him to continue selling, I will hire some Moroccans and put them to sell also on the beaches. But the mayor has told me: Ángel don't do that, I'll take care of this man, but don't do that, it gives a very bad image".
From the town hall they assure that it is forbidden to sell on those beaches because it is a protected natural space and although street vending is regulated at the state level, the council has not granted any license to trade on the beaches because there are already establishments that are dedicated to supplying drinks and soft drinks.
The institution also clarifies that the three beach bars in Papagayo have sanctioning files from the Government of the Canary Islands for carrying out classified activities, specifically hospitality, without a license and that there is even a sealing order from the Ministry of Health, because Luciano and Cruz's premises do not meet the hygienic-sanitary conditions to sell food products and do not have a license to do so.
The legal services of the southern council affirm that the sentence in which the seller takes refuge, only gives him the right to receive a notification from the town hall that has already been delivered to him and that denies him the requested license.
Meanwhile, Luciano says that if his situation is not solved "I am going to chain myself in the beach bar and go on a hunger strike".