Restaurants strike on popular Greek tourist island over beach clampdown

Restaurant owners protesting connected Paros connected Thursday. Photo: Aris MESSINIS / AFP
Source: AFP

Restaurant owners connected the Greek tourer land of Paros staged a 24-hour shutdown Thursday to protestation against zoning regulations blocking them from utilizing portion of the land harbour's beachfront.

"There is uproar among the professionals connected the land due to the fact that for 5 years now, since astir 2018, they person not been capable to legally rent the coastal front" astatine the main larboard of Parikia, Paros Mayor Costas Bizas told AFP.

Fines for amerciable concern of formation abstraction person accrued fourfold, Bizas said, hitting restaurants that trust connected the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Paros each year.

He noted that the authorities had pledged to code the contented months ago.

"Summer is here. There are thousands of visitors who privation to bask their repast connected the Parikia coastal front, and determination are different areas successful Paros that person a akin problem," Bizas said.

'Suddenly this country is not ineligible anymore,' 1 edifice relation says. Photo: Aris MESSINIS / AFP
Source: AFP

One edifice owner, Nicolas Giannoulis, said portion of the occupation was that a 30-year-old walkway on the beach, built by erstwhile municipal authorities, had been declared amerciable for unauthorised seating.

"We privation to wage and get a license" to utilise the abstraction for tables, said Giannoulis, 35. "We cannot hold each clip for July oregon August to find retired if we volition beryllium allowed to acceptable up tables during a play that begins successful April oregon May."

"It's been a large conflict to contented our permits successful bid to get the licensing to usage for our outdoor seating areas wherever we enactment our tables and chairs for astatine slightest 30 years," said chap edifice relation Olga Mira, 38.

"The bureaucracy changed truthful overmuch that abruptly this country is not ineligible anymore," she said.

Gina Lavine, a visitant from Canada, lamented the bare tables and closed parasols.

"I deliberation that we should beryllium allowed to spell beryllium astatine those tables and person the waiters travel service us," she said. "I don't deliberation the authorities should beryllium charging them to connection work to the tourists."

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Source: AFP