After the countless number of "Tapas Fairs" in Arrecife (at least four a year), it seems that its main organizer and strongest defender, Don Rafael Juan González, still does not know how to make the fair work without bothering the entire downtown area.
This time the tapas fair was decided to be located on the sidewalk of El Reducto Beach. For this, they closed, from Wednesday mid-morning, the Avenida Marítima from the Gran Hotel roundabout to the Cabildo. Five days of closure for a single day of celebration. The booths were set up on the bike lane, which, apart from the inconvenience of those days, added one more obstacle for cyclists, in addition to the cobbled lane: spilled oil. On the other hand, to the already complex traffic of Arrecife, a new inconvenience was added, and that is that until Monday it has been impossible to travel from the Cabildo to La Rocar along its maritime front, complicating the existence of residents, delivery drivers and lost tourists who were looking for a way to get to the Diamar hotel with their suitcases.
The Fair took place normally, we assume, after a spectacular night of Arrecife en Vivo and while the first Color Fest was being held in the neighboring town of Playa Honda. We already know that there is no communication between our municipalities, even though the same parties govern, and that they like several events to coincide at the same time to compete with each other and see who gathers the most public. Of course, when the Fair ended, the Reducto avenue was covered in garbage, plates, glasses and food scraps, waste that remained on the avenue without anyone bothering to pick them up until the next morning. During the night part of the garbage ended up on the beach, which offered an excellent spectacle to tourists and residents who, as every day, came from early in the morning. To top it off, we know that the truck, when it finally passed, collected everything without any separation of waste for later recycling. It was done late and badly.
It is striking that at this point Rafael Juan, who to make matters worse inaugurated his first tapas fair as councilor for the Environment, did not include enough trash cans in the project for the plates and glasses to end up in the container; It is common that there were no selective collection bins; It is shocking that the trash cans that are fixed on the avenue were used as support inside the booths; And it is shameful that a special cleaning committee was not foreseen so that, as soon as the Fair ended, the garbage would be collected and would not end up on the most visited beach in Arrecife, contaminating the sea and disfiguring its promenade. Surely it would be too much to expect that such measures would have occurred motu proprio to Tomás Fajardo (councilor for cleaning). He would probably have preferred to hand out brooms and have everyone pick up their own trash.
The culture of the Arrecifeña tapas fair, or the Tourist promotion that it supposedly offers us (depends on the council to which the 25,000€ that it costs us to set them up are left over and the office in which the Deputy Mayor is located), is in itself debatable, but it lacks the slightest sense when it suffers from such a lack of foresight, organization and cleanliness. Although perhaps it is too much to ask, let's hope that in the future a little more care and respect will be shown to an environment proposed to become a Site of Scientific Interest and that neighbors and visitors are spared the shame of attending morning shows like those of this Monday. The capital of this Biosphere Reserve that is Lanzarote deserves much more.
Daniel Cabecera, councilor of Ganemos Lanzarote in the Arrecife City Council
