Despair among beach bar owners and thirsty bathers as new chiringuito rules delay opening in Cartagena

For most beach bars the new regulations are proving either difficult or impossible to obey

For a couple of months now, since the start of the Easter holidays, residents and visitors at the beaches of Cartagena have been speculating about why hardly any beach bars have opened this year along the coastline from the Mar Menor to Isla Plana, and a spate of press releases this week appear to be clarifying the situation.

Complaints have been made in Cartagena council meetings that only 15 per cent of the “chringuitos” in Cartagena are currently open, despite the weather warming up considerably and lifeguard services already having begun from the summer at various locations.

But although many uninformed members of the public assume that the delay is caused simply by inefficiency in the Town Hall in granting the licences, it seems that the real problem is a series of new regulations specified this summer by the delegation of the Department of Coasts in the Region of Murcia, many of which are pricing difficult if not impossible to comply with.

The new regulations, which the councillor describes as “fussy” or “fanciful”, include the following:

• The distance between a beach bar and the sun loungers and sunshades it manages must be at least 50 metres.

It has to be said that this seems a rather random requirement, and that at many beaches there is not enough space for the gap of 50 metres to be established with the loungers in front of the bar area without placing the loungers in the sea!

• The distance between one set of loungers and another must be at least 100 metres.

This is one of the easier rules to obey since in very few places are beach bars placed so close together.

• The season must end on 15^th November rather than 31^st December.

This would certainly upset users at the establishment on the beach of San Ginés in La Azohía, where in recent years the beach bar has been open over Christmas and right up to New Year’s Eve. At present this bar is among those to have kept its shutters down, although over the last week the temporary hut has at least been installed.

• Storerooms are not permitted.

Clearly this causes logistical problems for many of the establishments, although in the eyes of the Department of Coasts storerooms apparently represent a threat to the coastal environment.

• Toilet facilities must be at least 6 metres from the rest of the bar.

Most establishments have complied with this regulation in the past for reasons of public health.

• In some cases the provision of shaded areas is no longer permitted.

It is difficult from an outside perspective to see the justification for such a measure when all over the beach people go to great lengths to install their own sunshades and even tarpaulin tentlike structures!

• The surface area of bar decking has been reduced.

Again, this seems designed to make it difficult for both owners and users to make the most of the beach bar!

• Fewer wooden walkways are permitted.

Many bars provide walkways to foot showers or to seafront promenades for the convenience of their customers, and once again this is a ruling for which the justification is unclear. In other parts of the beaches walkways are installed to and from foot showers without any problem!

In Cartagena Town Hall, PSOE councillor Manolo Torres has blamed the lack of beach bars on “the negligent management of (political party) Vox”, as reported in the regional press, referring specifically to “the ineptitude of Councillor Gonzalo López Pretel”, but the reply of Sr López, and of the Town Hall, is that the few beach bars which have opened have managed to do so because they are unaffected by the latest demands of the Department of Coasts.

He also says that when a proposal was tabled in council to confront the Coasts department on the issue, it was opposed by the PSOE.

It is also worth mentioning that in other coastal municipalities of the Region of Murcia there has been far less media coverage of any similar problems!

But for hungry and thirsty beachgoers, with the school holidays beginning in three weeks and the peak tourist season starting just a few days later, the important issue is not who’s to blame, but WHEN this glaring lack of facilities at what local authorities proudly and rightly claim is a wonderful range of beaches will be resolved!

Image: Town Hall of Cartagena