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Date Published: 05/08/2022

ARCHIVED - 5 Mar Menor chiringuitos to be forcibly closed down for only serving customers who don’t use the beach

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The five beach bars are accused of not opening in the mornings to beach users as they should, and of polluting the Mar Menor

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - 5 Mar Menor chiringuitos to be forcibly closed down for only serving customers who don’t use the beach

The coastal authority ‘Costas’, which rules on matters relating to Cartagena’s coastline and beaches, has initiated closure proceedings for five beach bars or ‘chiringuitos’ located between the beaches of El Vivero and Mar de Cristal.

Costas alleges that these bars are not open to the public in the morning, when there is a greater influx of users on the beaches, and only open in the afternoons and evenings, and thus are not fulfilling their proper purpose as beach bars.

In a letter sent to the bars, Costas complained that they were “opening only in the afternoon and evening, so that they are not providing a service to beach users but attract people who come to the beach for the sole purpose of consuming the catering services they provide”.

The bars, for their part, appear to have been forced to take this step because there are not enough people on the beaches to make it worth their while opening in the daytime.

You may also like: Cartagena chiringuito among the 25 best beach bars in Spain, according to Forbes

“It has been detected,” adds Costas, “that on the beaches of the municipality of Cartagena next to the Mar Menor between the Vivero and Mar de Cristal, the influx of beach users is so low that certain entrepreneurs who operate seasonal facilities have stopped opening their establishments during the usual hours for these users, having replaced that clientele with others who have nothing to do with the use and enjoyment of the beach or the elements associated with the authorisation (umbrellas, sunbeds, etc...), which are not even installed in their entirety.”

In addition, they say that the bars are polluting the Mar Menor: “The service is provided through the use of non-recyclable plastic cups that are blown by the wind into the Mar Menor along with cigarette butts and other polluting waste.”

Because of the non-beach-related activity of these bars, Costas considers that they “can be located anywhere”, so it “undermines the legal basis of the authorisation they have been granted”.

As such, their licences will be revoked, and all five bars will be forced to close down. The City Council of Cartagena now has ten days to try to reverse the situation and prevent these establishments from being closed right in the middle of the summer season.

There is more controversy over beach bar licences recently, as Cartagena has cracked down on a number of other chiringuitos recently for hosting late night concerts when they don’t have the proper authorisation.

Image: Ayuntamiento de Cartagena

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