Alicante mayor pledges to improve business-resident relationships

IMPROVED relationships between business owners in the heart of Alicante’s entertainment zone and residents affected by noise and disturbances have been promised by new Mayor Gabriel Echavarri.

The Mayor said new ordinances will be implemented to find the “middle ground” and to harmonise the activity of the hoteliers of the city centre with the right to rest of the locals.

Echavarri made the announcement after the awards ceremony of the contest ‘The Tardeo Route’ who admitted that long established ordinances regulating leisure activities have not been applied previously: “We will look for those intermediate points that enable businesses to generate employment and economic activity whilst neighbours are able to live peacefully at home.”

Echavarri defined the bar area known as ‘Tardeo’ as “a phenomenon that has made people across the province come to Alicante to eat in our restaurants and drink in our bars” acknowledging that “perhaps it is the task of the local police to ensure more of what happens on the street, outside the premises.”

Alicante is currently receiving a surge in tourists and hotel occupancy in the first half of the year was at 61.3 per cent, a rise of 4 per cent compared to the same period of 2014.