Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Beach Bars Go, But Puppies Have Another Place to Walk.

Mojácar is known for its narrow winding streets, its tumble of white houses on the last hill of a mountain chain and its views of the coast and the surrounds. Down on the coast itself, Mojácar is known for its beach bars.
The Town Hall has shown itself keen to reinvent Mojácar as a 'family' tourist destination, buckets and spades, ice creams and a large lunch in a - preferably - locally-owned venue. One councillor is keen on attracting Belgian cyclists, who like to clog up our roads in the low season, but the main thrust by our leaders is to encourage a brief visit from people whom don't wear Spandex, and keep their wallets ready for the souvenir shops (every family has one) and the aforementioned paellas.
So, in light of this, who needs beach bars?
Today's plenary session turned on this very point.  The new beach promenade, a wide affair with a wall, a walkway, benches and planters and a cycle path, is planned to reach as far as Garrucha, or perhaps even Barcelona one day in the far-flung future.
For the present, the three million euro plan is to extend some 650 metres from the Red Cross building along the increasingly narrow beach until the roundabout next to the Maui. The elevated structure would not only keep the sea serpents out, but also the surviving beach bar customers without a sea-view. Since the plan calls for expropriation of part of the beach bars, around 1,400 metres between the six of them (plus the half of the car-park owned by the Aku), there will not be much of the chiringuitos left, indeed, they will be lucky to hold on at all.
In the plenary session, both Jessica from Somos Mojácar and Manolo from the PSOE were against the plan, with Manolo being thrown out finally by Rosmari 'for cheek'. In the end, the motion to build the Paseo Maritimo through that particular chunk of the beach was carried with the rubber-stamp support PP and Lucas from the Mixed Group.
(We wondered - had any of the PP every actually been to a beach bar? Probably not)
The public gallery was full (for once) and all present applauded Jessica's and Manolo's remarks. 
Our pictures show support of the beach bars from Jessica, Manolo and Rosa. The other shows the ordered departure of Rosmari and her group until Manolo had left the Chamber.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh dear - the beach bars were at the heart of what I thought mojacar was all about - something different rustic and relaxing! Makes me want to sell up frankly.

Malc said...

When I first came to Mojacar the beach bars were what made this place different to all the other costas. When I bought a place I made sure it was walking distance of this area. The previous phases of the Paseo have already robbed us of some beach bars being on the beach and some have completely gone. This latest phase will completely rob us of any character that remains, replaced with a soulless block of concrete. I will now consider selling up and trying to find somewhere new

Unknown said...

Why can 'they' not offer a compromise to the owners of the affected bars as offered to Tito back in the mid 90's ?, granted much of the charm of the original Tito's was lost after the Paseo arrived, but the 'rustic' ambience of the churinguito remained !!.

Michael Ward said...

The councill do not seem to have any empathy with the historic character of Mojacar. The beach bars are popular and enjoyed by families and all ages. From the start there should have been a proper environmental assessment and public involvement with an exhibition showing design proposals including illustrations so everyone could express their views. It is such an important decision and one that is wrong for the council to impose. One very simple option would be to route the paseo around the front of the existing small number of beach bars and encourage the beach bars to open their frontages. This could be a very exciting option, saving considerable money and a win win all round. Pragmatism in the design of the paseo does not bring satisfactory solutions and more thought with a more flexible approach is really the way forward. There will be further opposition to the councils pragmatic approach if Mandala, Dolce Vita and other beach bars beyond are also destroyed and part of the soul of Mojacar is taken away and we are just left with a pedestrian and cycle highway. This can not be right! A stand should now be made and as much support as possible given to "Save our Chiringuitos" and encourage involvement across Spain as Chiringuitos are part of the beach culture of this beautiful country!