"It is an emblematic business, which has been here for almost forty years. Four generations of women have worked in the business for decades,” says Maleni Bonet. They now fear for the business, for the ten staff with permanent contracts who work all year and nine others who have 'fijo discontinuo' contracts. This is because a report from the Costas at the end of July ordered the demolition of the restaurant on environmental grounds.
María Pinya didn't apply for a coastal occupation licence until a couple of years ago. Maleni Bonet explains that her mother thought that the property title was enough. "We have always had activity permits and in its day the Coasts Law did allow activity." The situation has greatly affected María. She is 85, in a delicate state of health and feels responsible for what now faces the family business.
"It is my great-grandmother's house and we have always wanted to regularise the situation. It was a house that much later obtained a restaurant licence, but they are merciless with family businesses that are on the coast. The Costas are applying extensive power. What do they want? That there are only beach clubs managed by foreigners?"
In August last year, the environmentalist organisation GOB called on the Costas delegation in the Balearics to order the immediate closure of El Bungalow. GOB were critical of the Costas for not enforcing the law. To grant the restaurant a concession "would be a serious breach of the Coasts Law" and its regulations, which established that "possession of illegal occupation be recovered and that the removal of existing buildings is ordered".
Maleni Bonet stresses that "we are going to fight to this the end". "If necessary, we will chain ourselves to the restaurant."
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environmentalist organisation GOB THIS establishment NEEDS to keep it’s GOB firmly shut and concentrate in counting the rubbish and grains of sand on Es Trenc beach along with the turds in the sand dunes behind following it’s involvement in driving chiringitos along with their facilities and subsequent tourists off THAT beach to the detriment of Euro Income from people who enjoy visits to the beach environment. Have visited El Bungalow several times over tha last 15 years or so. It’s a quality restaurant next to the sea and similar to plenty along the coast. Attracts customers, keeps business viable, staff employed and taxes paid. El Bungalow is in keeping with other buildings within the vicinity, is not offensive by any means. NOW , Ms Aregeddon, do the job you are paid to do. Support the business which attract Euro income and subsequent taxes and tell these environmentalists to go pick up damp posidonia with tweezers and deposit it on agricultural fields as fertiliser or even add to that fertiliser with the effluent that comes out of the environmentalists gobs
WHY IS IT BEING CLOSED? My suspicion is the Councils or Authorities are not getting a slice of their money, or income. Classic Autocratic Greed!!!. So close it down.
The Costa Nostra seeks to strike again! Two of my favorite beach shacks are already gone, destroyed by an unfathomably stupid group of people who have NEVER had a grain of sand on flip-flops desperately searching, in the hot sun, for a sandwich and a beer. Their entire existence is to orbit a map of these islands and make squiggly lines and X's on shores they've never ever touched. They must be, indeed, miserable people.