After two rulings declaring the illegality of the premises and a closure order decreed last week by the City Council, the La Ola café-restaurant remains open and this Tuesday hosted a press conference by its owner, Kumar Manuel Gangaram Dadlani, who has assured that the City Council can give him two more months to "legalize" the situation.
"We are in a situation where this can be legalized, so we have asked to be given more time because now the work has a higher cost than we can afford," said Gangaram Dadlani, referring to the reforms that, according to him, he would have to undertake to adapt the premises to current regulations. And despite what the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands says, he assures that "La Ola" is "legalizable".
Kumar Dadlani arrived at his appointment with the media half an hour late because, he explained, he was at the City Council meeting with the Councilor for Urban Planning and "with Pepe", referring to the Mayor of Tías, José Juan Cruz Saavedra, to bring all the relevant documents to the press conference. With about 40 workers behind him and a mountain of papers scattered on the table, he began to explain that he has "appealed the closure order received by the City Council because now we have the documents that we did not have before". "Before we only had requests, but now we have answers that I bring with me," he added.
However, in the middle of a mountain of papers, what he has not shown are the documents that would justify that he requested the relevant licenses before starting the construction of the restaurant. In fact, the documents shown with requests for permits from Costas and the City Council are subsequent to the construction and even the opening of the restaurant.
Even so, the businessman insists that he did request the license from the City Council before starting the work and, although he has not been able to prove it, as he did not do so during the trial according to the TSJC ruling, he has assured the media that he will send the document by email in the coming days.
In any case, and although he does recognize that with the current structure a license could not be granted either, he insists that "my situation is different from three years ago, because I no longer have requests but approvals" (referring to the promenade and the terrace pool according to the documents he has shown) and maintains the hope of being able to "legalize this".
Appeal to the TSJC
To date, the owner of the premises has filed an appeal with the City Council against the new closure decree signed last week, and also plans to appeal the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands. "My lawyers are working on that appeal," he said.
Kumar has shown several concerns during the press conference. One of them referring to the fact that "people think that I have built a premises on Coastal land and it is not like that", and the other relating to his workers. "We feel annoyed because we have made an enormous effort to make this establishment of quality and we are going to try to keep it open. And if they were to tell me that I have to fire 40 people five years ago, when the economic situation was booming, then nothing would have happened because my workers would have found employment, but now it is not like that".