Machín defends the opening of the Mancha Blanca market: "There is strict coronavirus control"

“If cheap populism is doing your homework for the benefit of Tinajo, you can continue calling me a populist,” replies the mayor of Tinajo to the Arrecife Tourism and Commerce councillor, Armando Santana

January 22 2021 (18:57 WET)
Access control to the Mancha Blanca farmers market
Access control to the Mancha Blanca farmers market

The mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín, has responded to the statements of the Arrecife Tourism and Commerce councillor, Armando Santana, who criticized the fact that the Mancha Blanca Agricultural Market remained open with the Covid situation on the island, accusing him of "cheap populism". "If cheap populism is doing your homework for the benefit of Tinajo, you can continue calling me a populist,” Machín has replied. 

Machín states that "he has been perplexed by so much ignorance of the reality" and has offered to “explain to Councillor Armando Santana everything he does not know and has led him to say so many lies”. 

"I can explain to him what doing his homework consists of, to see if he learns to only talk about what he knows. The Mancha Blanca Agricultural Market has nothing to do with the rest of the offers of that type on the island, it is an establishment with a municipal license like any of the large surfaces that Santana has open in Arrecife, but this one is even better because it is outdoors and has greater ventilation", says the mayor of Tinajo, despite the fact that other markets held on the island are also held outdoors and that Santana stated that at the mayors' table and the president of the Cabildo "warned" Jesús Machín not to open.

"The stalls, authorized by Health, each have both running water and drainage and there is sufficient space between the stalls and delimitation of entry and exit of each of them. In addition, the farmer is the one who serves the product, not as in the supermarkets in his municipality where the packages are touched by everyone", adds Jesús Machín.

In addition, the mayor of Tinajo states that there is "strict coronavirus control. because the market has its COVID Plan project, greater control than that of any food surface in Lanzarote, with delimitation not only of the perimeter of the market but also of the car park

"Apart from hand washing with hydroalcoholic gel, control of the safety distance between visitors and the obligation to wear a mask at all times, we continue with the temperature taking of each visitor and we have the continuous presence of both Civil Protection and the Local Police and council technicians every Sunday. And all this, together with the municipal activity license, allows us to open when others cannot”, explains Jesús Machín. 

To conclude, the mayor of Tinajo reiterates that “the Mancha Blanca market cannot even be considered an event, as it is a fixed agricultural market with essential and organic products". "It is not an event but a fixed establishment, but it seems that Armando Santana was unaware of all this or I cannot explain how, with so many advisors and so many concerns in Arrecife, he has time to worry about issues of another municipality that he also does not know", he concludes. 

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