Wind and floods
January is a month in the north of Mallorca which is punctuated by the excitement for the Sant Antoni fiestas. Not everything went according to plan this year. There was weather.
The night of Sant Antoni Eve - bonfires and all - wasn't disrupted, despite the apparent madness of setting bonfires ablaze when the wind's howling. The closest thing there was to disaster was when an 18-year-old in an Audi decided to drive straight through a Sa Pobla bonfire. It was the next day when things went awry. The Formentor pine had to be transported over land rather than sea, and blessings were called off: Alcudia, Muro and Sa Pobla. Still, the pines were nevertheless climbed, which provoked its own spot of controversy - in Pollensa at any rate. Under-greased, the pine was a doddle, and the contest was all over in a few minutes.
The flooding in January led to the road that runs by the Albufera Nature Park from Playa de Muro to Sa Pobla having to be closed for several days. The Council of Mallorca came and had a look. The relevant councillor, Mercedes Garrido, said that there would be a plan for the road, about which nothing more was heard.
Valls and the cockerel
The Valls ice-cream kiosk saga dragged on. Pollensa town hall had said there would be a tender, then it said that there wouldn't be. It couldn't guarantee that the kiosk (whether in the same place or another) would be for the sale of "artisan" ice-cream or that the award would have to be to a local business; and by local the town hall meant from Pollensa.
The Sant Antoni cockerel (the one at the top of the Pollensa pine) was up for discussion. There was a council motion for the cockerel to be eliminated; 1992 animal-protection law regarding the use of animals in the "human environment" was cited. The motion was defeated. "Shameful," said the Alternativa per Pollença. Nevertheless, the mayor, Miquel Àngel March, who had been in favour of the motion, announced that there won't be a cockerel in January 2018.
Alcudia's name and pressure group
Salvem el Moll, the Puerto Alcudia pressure group, was regularly in the news, taking aim at Alcudiamar, the Balearic Ports Authority and Alcudia town hall. Was the fact that it only had 283 likes on its Facebook page (back in March) an indication of support? Numbers who turned out for its periodic protests barely reached double figures.
Muro town hall copped for some flak over a photo taken during the minute's silence for the Westminster terrorist attack. Of twelve people in the photo, only four had solemn expressions. The others were either smiling or laughing. If nothing else, could the town hall not have chosen another photo for its Facebook page?
Alcudia wanted to give its name to a car. The motor manufacturer Seat was introducing a new model and was looking for somewhere in Spain with a name that had to start with an A. The town hall therefore fired off a letter to Seat's president and advanced the case for the car to be the Seat Alcudia. It wasn't.
The bus station and no confidence
The Puerto Pollensa bus station (which we later learned isn't a bus station; just some bus stops) was finally approved, but not without an unholy row. So heated did things get that two councillors - Miquel Àngel Sureda (Junts) and Marti Roca (now unaccredited, formerly El Pi) - had something of a set-to. Denuncias were being threatened, etc, etc.
Miquel Àngel March, who had faced a possible vote of no confidence some months previously, was confronted with another one. This time, he himself threw down the gauntlet. It was all to do with approving the budget. He lost the vote, but there was never any possibility of his being replaced because the opposition was not in a position to muster sufficient votes. March knew this. The deadline for presenting an alternative to him passed, and so was the budget.
The students and wake park
The so-called Mallorca Island Festival at Bellevue, as each year, left a trail of complaints about noise, behaviour and vandalism. Also as each year, it was studiously ignored by the media. Was this to do with the fact that it was Spanish students causing the complaints? It may only have been three weeks, but there had to be some perspective: three weeks too many for residents denied sleep, for those whose cars were trampled on, for businesses which were robbed, for other businesses which suffered because a regular type of tourist wasn't present.
Members of the Spanish Royal Family came to Alcudia's Wake Park. The Queen Mother, Sofia, would have been among family members with no idea that the park on Lago Menor (aka Lake Placid) was the source of a row with the residents. One community had sent off a letter of complaint to the Costas Authority in Madrid about the noise from the zip system.
José's terrace
There was the war of José's chairs - José as in Bony in Puerto Pollensa. Full enforcement of Pollensa terrace and tables law had become an obsession of the town hall administration. The police turned up one evening in September. There were alternative versions. The police closed the bar. José decided to close it. Typically eccentric postings on Facebook only added to the confusion, but the situation was to settle down.
Salvem el Moll reappeared and was pressurising the town hall into closing the Alcudiamar Botel. Apparently, so it is claimed, there shouldn't be a hotel as such. The town hall said it wanted more information and wouldn't be acting in a "drastic" manner.
Catalonia and Monjo's route
Back at Pollensa town hall, the Catalonia referendum threatened to once more break the ruling pact between the Junts and the UMP. There was a compromise which avoided this, but the president of the UMP resigned in protest over a pro-referendum motion.
Santa Margalida's mayor, Joan Monjo, was livid that there was no tourist tax revenue for an archaeological route. It then emerged that this route would pass by an agrotourism establishment in Muro that is owned by the mayor. Monjo denied that this had anything to do with the project and that the route would in any event be some distance from the hotel.
The winds returned
And the year drew towards a close in similar fashion to how it had begun - with weather. The high winds of Cyclone Bruno contributed to the death of a windsurfer in Alcudia and whipped up a potentially disastrous fire in Puerto Pollensa.
Showing posts with label Gelats Valls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gelats Valls. Show all posts
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Getting Angry In Puerto Pollensa
People have been getting angry in Puerto Pollensa. People are signing petitions, people are falling out, people are arranging demonstrations. It seems like 2010 all over again, when the people took to the streets and when the then mayor, Joan Cerdà, was all but barricaded inside the one-time municipal building.
The hopeless pedestrianisation pilot scheme of the Cerdà administration - abandoned by the time the 2010 protest took place at the start of June that year - was just one ingredient that went into a whole menu of complaints directed at the town hall. The actual scheme, the one being worked on at present, has once more put the town hall in the firing line but it has also, as has been revealed on social media, driven something of a wedge between people.
Then there are the charges that the town hall has had to respond to that the new pavements do not permit accessibility for wheelchairs (or indeed baby buggies and any other form of wheeled device). A levelling-off that will allow smooth accessibility will not be done until the second phase this winter. In the meantime, says the town hall, temporary solutions will be adopted that allow for wheelchair use.
Anyway, at 11am on Monday there is to be a form of protest to highlight the difficulties posed at present for wheelchair, mobility and buggy users.
Slightly ironic in light of the other reason for anger is the meeting place for this protest. It will be in front of Gran Café 1919, the establishment by the yacht club roundabout that found itself at the centre of the most colossal row that broke out last weekend. While the falling-out over the pedestrianisation might have appeared somewhat personal at times, that was nothing compared to this controversy. It is highly personal.
To cut to the chase, this involves the ice-cream kiosk of Gelats Valls in front of Gran Café 1919. The kiosk has been there and been operated by the Valls family since the 1960s. It is, say many, emblematic, a part of the Puerto Pollensa furniture. However, a 2015 town hall decision made it clear that as the kiosk is on the public way there has to be a tender for its operation. The Valls family were informed of this and told that the kiosk could not re-open this year, subject to the tender process being initiated and completed. It has re-opened.
The family says that there was once an award for the kiosk for a period of 99 years or until such a time as the families (Valls and Martorells) ceased to be involved in the ice-cream business. A problem with this is that no one can find the documentary evidence.
The town hall had been going through a process of annual reconfirmation of the kiosk's activities, but in September 2014 it received a communication from Café Capuchino 1919 SL, the company under which Gran Café 1919 trades. This was essentially a request for the town hall to consider the occupation of the public way by the kiosk. The communication also suggested that the kiosk represented an invasion of space authorised or authorisable for use by the cafe. It would appear that it was this which resulted in the town hall decision of May 2015 that the authorisation to Valls would cease at the end of the year and that the space would revert to the town hall, which would place the kiosk up for tender.
The story of this is, on the one hand, a story of nostalgia and of the rights of the small, family business. Everyone, tourist and resident alike, seems to have their own story and recollection of the kiosk, the ice-cream and the founders. On the other, it is a story of what can only be described as resentment directed at a bigger business concern. Gran Café 1919 is just one establishment which ultimately belongs to Grupo Boulevard.
There is a good deal of history in Puerto Pollensa concerning Boulevard, and all this old resentment burst out because of the Valls affair. Some of what has been expressed on social media, directed at Boulevard and at its owner, borders on the libellous, as do some observations made about the town hall. In some ways, it has become a story of classic smalltown politics and business, replete with rivalries and hostilities. In others, it is just about people, some with long memories of holidays and residence, sticking up for a well-loved ice-cream kiosk which seems to be a victim.
Emotions have been allowed to run high. Rather too high. The pedestrianisation works, admittedly a less than satisfactorily managed project, will cease soon enough, and hopefully the ill-feeling will cease as well. As for the ice-cream kiosk, perhaps a hope that the town hall had expressed for a "satisfactory and amicable solution" prior to the kiosk having re-opened might yet be found.
The hopeless pedestrianisation pilot scheme of the Cerdà administration - abandoned by the time the 2010 protest took place at the start of June that year - was just one ingredient that went into a whole menu of complaints directed at the town hall. The actual scheme, the one being worked on at present, has once more put the town hall in the firing line but it has also, as has been revealed on social media, driven something of a wedge between people.
Then there are the charges that the town hall has had to respond to that the new pavements do not permit accessibility for wheelchairs (or indeed baby buggies and any other form of wheeled device). A levelling-off that will allow smooth accessibility will not be done until the second phase this winter. In the meantime, says the town hall, temporary solutions will be adopted that allow for wheelchair use.
Anyway, at 11am on Monday there is to be a form of protest to highlight the difficulties posed at present for wheelchair, mobility and buggy users.
Slightly ironic in light of the other reason for anger is the meeting place for this protest. It will be in front of Gran Café 1919, the establishment by the yacht club roundabout that found itself at the centre of the most colossal row that broke out last weekend. While the falling-out over the pedestrianisation might have appeared somewhat personal at times, that was nothing compared to this controversy. It is highly personal.
To cut to the chase, this involves the ice-cream kiosk of Gelats Valls in front of Gran Café 1919. The kiosk has been there and been operated by the Valls family since the 1960s. It is, say many, emblematic, a part of the Puerto Pollensa furniture. However, a 2015 town hall decision made it clear that as the kiosk is on the public way there has to be a tender for its operation. The Valls family were informed of this and told that the kiosk could not re-open this year, subject to the tender process being initiated and completed. It has re-opened.
The family says that there was once an award for the kiosk for a period of 99 years or until such a time as the families (Valls and Martorells) ceased to be involved in the ice-cream business. A problem with this is that no one can find the documentary evidence.
The town hall had been going through a process of annual reconfirmation of the kiosk's activities, but in September 2014 it received a communication from Café Capuchino 1919 SL, the company under which Gran Café 1919 trades. This was essentially a request for the town hall to consider the occupation of the public way by the kiosk. The communication also suggested that the kiosk represented an invasion of space authorised or authorisable for use by the cafe. It would appear that it was this which resulted in the town hall decision of May 2015 that the authorisation to Valls would cease at the end of the year and that the space would revert to the town hall, which would place the kiosk up for tender.
The story of this is, on the one hand, a story of nostalgia and of the rights of the small, family business. Everyone, tourist and resident alike, seems to have their own story and recollection of the kiosk, the ice-cream and the founders. On the other, it is a story of what can only be described as resentment directed at a bigger business concern. Gran Café 1919 is just one establishment which ultimately belongs to Grupo Boulevard.
There is a good deal of history in Puerto Pollensa concerning Boulevard, and all this old resentment burst out because of the Valls affair. Some of what has been expressed on social media, directed at Boulevard and at its owner, borders on the libellous, as do some observations made about the town hall. In some ways, it has become a story of classic smalltown politics and business, replete with rivalries and hostilities. In others, it is just about people, some with long memories of holidays and residence, sticking up for a well-loved ice-cream kiosk which seems to be a victim.
Emotions have been allowed to run high. Rather too high. The pedestrianisation works, admittedly a less than satisfactorily managed project, will cease soon enough, and hopefully the ill-feeling will cease as well. As for the ice-cream kiosk, perhaps a hope that the town hall had expressed for a "satisfactory and amicable solution" prior to the kiosk having re-opened might yet be found.
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