Alex Trelinski
A RESTAURANT that has been a landmark on Torrevieja’s Playa del Cura for 80 years is being torn down on the orders of the provincial Coastal Authority(Costas).
It’s the culmination of a 12-year battle by the El Tintero owners whose grandfather opened up the business- initially as a base for fishermen to dry out their equipment.
Over the years, El Tintero became a well-established seafood restaurant on what is public land next to the sea, and therefore subject to coastal laws which saw the Costas win an initial ruling in 2011 to get the building removed.
The authority’s argument was that El Tintero was stopping an uninterrupted view of the sea from the Paseo de Las Rocas-Juan Aparicio and that a private business cannot operate on public land.
It’s presumed that some kind of formal viewpoint will be created on the site.
Back in 1954, El Tintero’s owner got official ministerial authorisation to occupy the area, which he had already for a decade.
Coastal laws changed subsequently and when the concession expired in 2011, a new one was opposed by the Costas.
Torrevieja council had started action in February to have El Tintero declared as an Asset of Local Relevance but progress on that did not come in time to save the structure
Torrevieja mayor, Eduardo Dolon, said: “The land is 100% owned by the coastal department which means it is a maritime-terrestrial domain zone, which means that they can do what they see fit- and in fact they are doing it.”
Earlier this month, the Olive Press reported that 115 Denia homeowners were being virtually stripped of their properties because of the ‘Coastal Law’.
The owners will now find themselves living on ‘public domain’ land after the coastline map was redrawn by the Costas.
The Costas say the owners will not lose their homes but will have a ‘75-year concession’ and that demarcation of areas did ‘not imply that any homes would be demolished’ along with the fact they can be sold or passed on as an inheritance.
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