La Lonja bars get a final warning

The Mayor of Palma, Joan Fageda, yesterday warned bar owners in La Lonja that the city council will strictly enforce the new opening hours and music regulations. Fageda stressed that the city authority will be quick to jump on any bars which fail to obey the new norms passed by the council this week. From Thursdays to Saturdays, inclusive, music has to be turned off and bars closed by 3am and from Sundays to Wednesdays the shut off time is 1am. As far as Fageda and the council are concerned the war over noise which has been raging in La Lonja for the past five years between bar owners and residents is over. “We've kept to our part of the bargain and we'll not stand for music being played even a minute past the deadline,” he said yesterday. Residents in the area are not as content as the mayor however. Spokesperson for the Puig de Sant Pere residents association, Felicidad Marcos, was far from happy yesterday accusing the city council of acting in the best interests of the bar owners. The new regulations “will not make the slightest bit of difference” she said. Fageda slammed the attack as unfair, pointing out that the city council has spent a great deal of time and effort in reaching a satisfactory conclusion. The city councillor for health, Maria Crespo, said that the new hours have been devised in order to “create a balance between the residents' rights to relax and local businesspeople's right to operate.” “We've already revoked one bar's licence and we'll close them all if they fail to co-operate,” Crespo warned. A number of regular visitors to Palma have commented this winter about how quiet and “closed up” La Lonja is.