There was a very revealing report in "The Diario" yesterday. The paper had spoken with mayors around the island and discovered a universal admission that works related to hotel renovations occur without licences having been granted. The typical period of time needed to go through the licensing process is six months - at least. The mayor of Alcúdia was one who admitted that this happened. The reasons for this revolve around the lack of qualified personnel to hurry along the process and the necessity of dealing with other agencies, most notably the ministries for the environment and the coasts. Miquel Ferrer, Alcúdia's mayor, emphasised that, regardless of the licence situation, works had to be undertaken with the correct levels of safety.
This is the context, therefore, of the Son Moll hotel collapse in Cala Ratjada. The town hall of Capdepera, that under which Cala Ratjada falls, is by no means the only administration that "allows" (inverted commas stressed) these works to go ahead. The admission by the mayors, which will come as absolutely no surprise but is nevertheless extremely significant, throws into relief the background to the tragedy of the deaths of the workers at Son Moll. The point is that it is pretty much accepted practice that work happens without licences being in place. It may not be right, but virtually it is the de facto state of affairs - the way it is. The Son Moll case has merely acted to highlight what has been going on and does go on.
One has to ask the question. Was the absence of a licence the cause of the accident? This is obviously one for the investigators. But if all other procedures were in order, as is being claimed, can the lack of a licence really be held as a contributory or crucial factor, especially when such a lack is known to be a fact of building works for hotels? The general workers union has been arguing that the mayor of Capdepera should be indicted for not preventing the renovation at Son Moll. Maybe it has a point, but the union will know, as well as anyone else, what the system is.
We're getting into deep legal water, so I don't intend to go far, but the licence issue may just be, if not an irrelevance, then a less-than-crucial factor. I said the other day that the case reflects a societal failure - one of accepting that certain rules have to be, how can I put it, massaged. But it demonstrates also an administrative failure. When the Balearic Government announced that it would seek to reduce bureaucracy in order to facilitate the zero- or low-interest-financed modernisations of hotels, one hotelier expressed his doubts that the town halls would be quite so amenable. Yet, it isn't just the town halls. This appears to be a multi-agency failure, and one possibly with a degree of turf wars amongst the various bodies and their organisational cultures.
If one takes Alcúdia as an example - and remember that it was in Alcúdia that Sunwing went ahead with a modernisation and received a hefty fine for doing so - imagine what would happen if all the hotels applied for a licence to undertake works? Total logjam. Consider just how many hotels there are, not just in Alcúdia, but across the island. Their renovations are a part of the wider construction industry, one upon which the island's economy is so dependent. Yet, the administrative system behind the industry cannot cope. It's small wonder that work goes ahead without all the relevant permissions. And everyone appears to know that this is so. How many other modernisations are currently in progress across the island that are similar to Son Moll? If indeed it is the case that the owners filed their application in August, one might say that they should have waited till the end of the 2009 season before proceeding - by which time, one presumes, the licence would have been effected. But that would lengthen even further an already drawn-out process. Businesses and indeed the whole economy cannot be stalled or held hostage by the inadequacy of the administrative system.
It has taken the deaths of the men at Son Moll to bring the whole licence issue to the fore. It should now be down to the Balearic Government to resolve how the system of licensing can be made more efficient. I wish them luck.
Yesterday was a day for revealing stories. "The Diario" has also turned up something in respect of the projected golf development on the Son Bosc finca in Muro. And that is ... The mayor of Muro, who has supported the development, has a business association with the head of the Garden hotels group, which in turn is one of the companies that has a major shareholding in another company - Golf Playa de Muro. Another local hotel chain - Grupotel - is also a shareholder.
The mayor says that he has "no relation to or direct interest in the golf course". The exact business association is that he is a member of a further company, one in the name of the head of Garden hotels, with the same Inca address, but one established for activities on the mainland. In this respect, he doesn't. The connection to the golf development is, therefore, rather distant in terms of the companies involved, but the mere fact of any association is bound to raise questions. And that is what the paper has done. No-one is suggesting anything untoward, but the mayor's independence when it comes to what is a controversial development may appear to have been compromised.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Madonna, "La Isla Bonita". Today's title - American best known, well only really known, for this.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Showing posts with label Death of workers at hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death of workers at hotel. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Twelve Days Of A Mallorcan Christmas
Ah, yes. Chestnuts roasting over an open butane-gas heater. Jack Frost British store not nipping at anyone's toes or indeed wallets because it's been closed for years. The sounds of a traditional Spanish Yuletime in the Mallorcan supermarkets - a Phil Spector Christmas collection ronetting over the PA's. It's that time of year again, or perhaps you hadn't noticed. In keeping with the ending of the year, this blog, recognising its role as an important part of the media, will do what other sectors of the media do, and that's desperately try and fill some space with a look back and with a touch of seasonal merriment - ho, ho, ho. Expect some time soon, therefore, the review of 2008. But meantime, to help you along your way with your Christmas festivities, here is the blog's first venture into Christmas songs. Ladies and gentlemen, the Twelve Days of Christmas with a Mallorcan stylie, and some of the numbers even make sense (some don't). If you don't "get" some of the references, then there will be an explanation tomorrow. Right, clear the throat ...
"On the twelfth day of a Mallorcan Christmas, the town hall invoiced me:
Twelve Lees a-Leapying
Eleven millions tourist-ing
Ten Elvis Presleys
Nine mayors corrupting
Eight winds a-blowing
Seven knocking shops a-knocking
Six dogs a-dooing
FIVE EUROS A PINT
Four scratch cards
Three tex-mexs
Two parking spots
And a processionary caterpillar in a pine tree"
Fabulous, I'm sure you'll agree.
CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY - LATEST
The three people, who had been arrested following the deaths of the workers at the collapsed hotel, have been released from prison, without bail, by a judge making the initial investigations. Remember what I said about back-covering? Well, blow me, one of the architects has used the very phrase "covering their backs" in respect of the town hall; indeed he says that this was the explanation given by those from the town hall who delivered notices regarding the absence of a licence.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Gladys Knight (licence to "kilt") - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5G_05a5UU. No quiz today.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
"On the twelfth day of a Mallorcan Christmas, the town hall invoiced me:
Twelve Lees a-Leapying
Eleven millions tourist-ing
Ten Elvis Presleys
Nine mayors corrupting
Eight winds a-blowing
Seven knocking shops a-knocking
Six dogs a-dooing
FIVE EUROS A PINT
Four scratch cards
Three tex-mexs
Two parking spots
And a processionary caterpillar in a pine tree"
Fabulous, I'm sure you'll agree.
CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY - LATEST
The three people, who had been arrested following the deaths of the workers at the collapsed hotel, have been released from prison, without bail, by a judge making the initial investigations. Remember what I said about back-covering? Well, blow me, one of the architects has used the very phrase "covering their backs" in respect of the town hall; indeed he says that this was the explanation given by those from the town hall who delivered notices regarding the absence of a licence.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Gladys Knight (licence to "kilt") - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5G_05a5UU. No quiz today.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, December 19, 2008
Licence To Kill
The inevitable fall-out from the Cala Ratjada hotel tragedy has only begun. It could just turn out to be something of a landmark as the first accusations and counter-accusations indicate the frankly ludicrous nature of how this building work was allowed to proceed. Setting aside, obviously, culpability, here we have a case in which there was no licence, and yet the owners were negotiating for it after the work had begun (there is a suggestion that they had in fact applied for it in August); in which the town hall says that on three occasions it attempted to get the works stopped (the owners refute this); in which, according to neighbours, everyone knew about the works (well of course they would; it would have been pretty difficult for them not to have known); in which the town hall and the local police enabled the closing of the street in order that certain work and rubbish removal could be done; in which the architects' association says that it doubts that the town hall would have denied a licence, admits the work should not have been started without it, but goes on to say that architects accept that this way of working, without the licence, is sometimes done because of the pressures of obtaining licences in order to complete works before the tourist season and that some smaller town halls go along with this.
The above is largely taken in translation from reports in "The Diario". I wouldn't normally take this amount, but it is all highly significant and important to convey, especially the last parts, those relating to the town hall. And it says just about everything you need to know about the ways in which things seem to work here. How on earth, for example, can the town hall and the police (the police, for heaven's sake) permit the closure of a street for work relating to something that did not have a licence? Anyone care to volunteer an answer, because I'm damned if I know. Of course, there may well be some back-covering going on in all of this, but these are the "facts" as they are currently being presented, including that which suggests that, licence or no licence, the work being undertaken was otherwise in order.
Tragedy this has been in that four men have lost their lives, but there is another tragedy at play, and that is the wider implications of the case, which itself is likely to be seen as a monstrous indictment of how the "system" operates here. How many building works go on without licences? But the specifics of the licence are just symptomatic of a wider malaise, one of rule-bending and of an unwritten complicity, not necessarily of a criminal type but one of smoothing the way. It isn't just the bureaucracy that is to blame; it is an acceptance that this is "how it is". It is something that pervades much of Mallorcan society. There is a societal failure as much as there might be an institutional, a legal or a systemic failure. The men who have died might just become martyrs to something way beyond the details of the Son Moll hotel collapse, and which leads to an examination and maybe a righting of this societal failure. It's a societal licence, not just an official document, and look where it's got us. It does not have to be "how it is". It should be how it was and how it will now be in the future. Don't hold your breath.
PUERTO POLLENSA ON ICE
Ever wondered about what would happen with the yard outside the old school by the church square? Maybe you haven't. But if you have, here is the word - maybe. An ice rink. There's more to this than it seems. And is not as daft as it sounds. So I am told.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bobby McFerrin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnvSQuv-H4). Today's title - Bond, Motown, easy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The above is largely taken in translation from reports in "The Diario". I wouldn't normally take this amount, but it is all highly significant and important to convey, especially the last parts, those relating to the town hall. And it says just about everything you need to know about the ways in which things seem to work here. How on earth, for example, can the town hall and the police (the police, for heaven's sake) permit the closure of a street for work relating to something that did not have a licence? Anyone care to volunteer an answer, because I'm damned if I know. Of course, there may well be some back-covering going on in all of this, but these are the "facts" as they are currently being presented, including that which suggests that, licence or no licence, the work being undertaken was otherwise in order.
Tragedy this has been in that four men have lost their lives, but there is another tragedy at play, and that is the wider implications of the case, which itself is likely to be seen as a monstrous indictment of how the "system" operates here. How many building works go on without licences? But the specifics of the licence are just symptomatic of a wider malaise, one of rule-bending and of an unwritten complicity, not necessarily of a criminal type but one of smoothing the way. It isn't just the bureaucracy that is to blame; it is an acceptance that this is "how it is". It is something that pervades much of Mallorcan society. There is a societal failure as much as there might be an institutional, a legal or a systemic failure. The men who have died might just become martyrs to something way beyond the details of the Son Moll hotel collapse, and which leads to an examination and maybe a righting of this societal failure. It's a societal licence, not just an official document, and look where it's got us. It does not have to be "how it is". It should be how it was and how it will now be in the future. Don't hold your breath.
PUERTO POLLENSA ON ICE
Ever wondered about what would happen with the yard outside the old school by the church square? Maybe you haven't. But if you have, here is the word - maybe. An ice rink. There's more to this than it seems. And is not as daft as it sounds. So I am told.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bobby McFerrin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnvSQuv-H4). Today's title - Bond, Motown, easy.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Don't Worry
You would think that language was one of the last things that would have a potentially negative impact on tourism. For your Brits, it matters little that they can't use the lingo. But where they can, it is Castilian that they use. Or should it be? We are back in Catalan territory, and one local politico, the mayor of Calvià (Magaluf etc.), reckons that leading tour operators - Spanish ones, that is - are seeing a reduction in the numbers of Spanish mainland tourists coming to the Balearics because they are worried that they are going to be confronted not with the national language but with Catalan. As the mayor represents the Partido Popular, which traditionally is somewhat antagonistic towards Catalan, you might say that, well, he would say that. Except that it appears to be tour operators who are saying it. Whether these Spanish tourists need to be worried is questionable, but they appear to have the perception that Catalan prevails, even if this may not turn out to be the case.
These worries, one supposes, stem from the publicity given to various initiatives to have Catalan as the language of bars and restaurants. A far from insignificant sum of money has been devoted to just that, and the other day I mentioned this bizarre idea of people being encouraged to go to their local café for the purposes of having a chat in Catalan. The Calvià mayor is accused by the opposition parties (socialists and nationalists) of having an obsession with the Catalan question, reports "The Diario", but one might argue that they - the opposition parties, especially the Unió Mallorquina - have an obsession as well: that of imposition. At a time when there are rather weightier matters with which everyone should be concerning themselves, the politics of language - as it may or may not affect tourism - is a ridiculous diversion.
It might be argued, well what about the poor old tourist from Mallorca who goes to the mainland and is confronted with Castilian. It could be argued, but the problem does not exist that way round to any such extent; mostly everyone here can speak both languages. Only those from Catalan areas of the mainland would be able to do likewise.
In truth though, I suspect the mayor is rather overstating the case. Whatever other politicians or other bodies may have in mind, the practicalities of language are not lost on those who really matter, i.e. those with bars or restaurants. They will continue to use whatever language is necessary, and much as some town halls may use Catalan only for some things, e.g. fiesta publicity, there is no evidence - as far as I am aware - of their adopting Catalan exclusively for other material: they would be crazy to do so. Go to a local tourist information office and spend any time observing - which I do from time to time - and you will hear staff using several languages, of which Catalan is but one. The Catalan thing is not an issue, except when politicians make it so.
THE CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY
The atrocious weather is being blamed for the collapse of the upper floors of a hotel (Son Moll) in Cala Ratjada (along the coastline going east from Alcúdia) and for the deaths of four workers engaged in renovation work. There was, so it would seem, an undermining of the building brought about by the recent rains. There is other blame being thrown around, and that has to do with the fact that, allegedly, the renovation work was being done illegally: in other words, there was no licence to do it. Shocking though the story is and though someone, or some people, will get a hammering, the question has to be asked as to why the renovation work would be done without a licence. And we may well be back to what I have said before - bureaucracy and costs of obtaining the permissions. It is just this bureaucracy that the Balearic Government wishes to now cut through in order to enable hotels to go ahead with modernisations (the hotel in question was in the process of being upgraded to a four-star). The case might just cause the authorities to seriously address the circumstances as to why alleged illegal works are done, the sort that do go on and which take a tragedy to bring into focus.
Updating the above, two architects and the manager of the works have been arrested, while the owners and the construction companies are, potentially, implicated. The owners say that all the documents they had, related to the renovation, were in order, including those for health and safety regulations, and that they were in the process of negotiating the licence. A key question, I suppose, is whether or not a licence would have been granted on the grounds of safety. Anyway, it's all in the hands of the police now, so no pre-judging.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - WARNING, WARNING
I received yesterday an extraordinary email from someone I know in Alcúdia. I have no reason to believe that it is anything but genuine. What it is, is a warning not to pick up the likes of mobile phones or keyrings that may seem to have been abandoned, for example in the street. They could be dynamite - literally. This is apparently an ETA ploy. The warning seems especially aimed at those in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, but it could apply anywhere I guess. See a mobile, get away quick!
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Today's title - the other half of the title seems rather inappropriate given the Cala Ratjada and ETA stories, but anyway, who was it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
These worries, one supposes, stem from the publicity given to various initiatives to have Catalan as the language of bars and restaurants. A far from insignificant sum of money has been devoted to just that, and the other day I mentioned this bizarre idea of people being encouraged to go to their local café for the purposes of having a chat in Catalan. The Calvià mayor is accused by the opposition parties (socialists and nationalists) of having an obsession with the Catalan question, reports "The Diario", but one might argue that they - the opposition parties, especially the Unió Mallorquina - have an obsession as well: that of imposition. At a time when there are rather weightier matters with which everyone should be concerning themselves, the politics of language - as it may or may not affect tourism - is a ridiculous diversion.
It might be argued, well what about the poor old tourist from Mallorca who goes to the mainland and is confronted with Castilian. It could be argued, but the problem does not exist that way round to any such extent; mostly everyone here can speak both languages. Only those from Catalan areas of the mainland would be able to do likewise.
In truth though, I suspect the mayor is rather overstating the case. Whatever other politicians or other bodies may have in mind, the practicalities of language are not lost on those who really matter, i.e. those with bars or restaurants. They will continue to use whatever language is necessary, and much as some town halls may use Catalan only for some things, e.g. fiesta publicity, there is no evidence - as far as I am aware - of their adopting Catalan exclusively for other material: they would be crazy to do so. Go to a local tourist information office and spend any time observing - which I do from time to time - and you will hear staff using several languages, of which Catalan is but one. The Catalan thing is not an issue, except when politicians make it so.
THE CALA RATJADA HOTEL TRAGEDY
The atrocious weather is being blamed for the collapse of the upper floors of a hotel (Son Moll) in Cala Ratjada (along the coastline going east from Alcúdia) and for the deaths of four workers engaged in renovation work. There was, so it would seem, an undermining of the building brought about by the recent rains. There is other blame being thrown around, and that has to do with the fact that, allegedly, the renovation work was being done illegally: in other words, there was no licence to do it. Shocking though the story is and though someone, or some people, will get a hammering, the question has to be asked as to why the renovation work would be done without a licence. And we may well be back to what I have said before - bureaucracy and costs of obtaining the permissions. It is just this bureaucracy that the Balearic Government wishes to now cut through in order to enable hotels to go ahead with modernisations (the hotel in question was in the process of being upgraded to a four-star). The case might just cause the authorities to seriously address the circumstances as to why alleged illegal works are done, the sort that do go on and which take a tragedy to bring into focus.
Updating the above, two architects and the manager of the works have been arrested, while the owners and the construction companies are, potentially, implicated. The owners say that all the documents they had, related to the renovation, were in order, including those for health and safety regulations, and that they were in the process of negotiating the licence. A key question, I suppose, is whether or not a licence would have been granted on the grounds of safety. Anyway, it's all in the hands of the police now, so no pre-judging.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - WARNING, WARNING
I received yesterday an extraordinary email from someone I know in Alcúdia. I have no reason to believe that it is anything but genuine. What it is, is a warning not to pick up the likes of mobile phones or keyrings that may seem to have been abandoned, for example in the street. They could be dynamite - literally. This is apparently an ETA ploy. The warning seems especially aimed at those in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, but it could apply anywhere I guess. See a mobile, get away quick!
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Today's title - the other half of the title seems rather inappropriate given the Cala Ratjada and ETA stories, but anyway, who was it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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