Benidorm demo planned for this Sunday

BENIDORM’S business and hospitality trade associations are organising a peaceful demonstration this Sunday, August 23. 
“This is prompted by the Spanish government’s continual absurdities and lack of organisation or planning during the health crisis,” declared Benidorm’s independent shopkeepers’ association, AICO. 
Past and current policies are penalising businesspeople, shopkeepers and the self-employed while burdening them with debts, AICO said. 
Together with ABRECA, representing Benidorm’s bars, restaurants and cafeterias, and OCIOBAL, an association of disco, pub and night-time venue owners, AICO called on the local population to join this Sunday’s demonstration. 
The three associations argue that holiday destinations with favourable statistics should not be subjected to the most recent government measures and intend to start legal proceedings asking for the suspension of the latest decree, AICO explained. 
The demonstration leaves the Hotel Cimbel on the Levante promenade at 11am, continuing to the town hall where the associations will read out a manifesto.  
“Owners are subjected to important decisions signify success or failure for a business,” AICO said. 
“Like the rest of the Benidorm community, we have been committed from the outset to very strict hygiene procedures requiring great economic and organisational effort.”  
The association went on to point out that this compliance is reflected in Benidorm’s encouraging Covid-19 figures of 24 cases in the previous fortnight, a ratio of fewer than six contagions for every 100,000 inhabitants despite the tourist influx. 
“These statistics back up Benidorm’s good practices and enormous commitment,” AICO said. 
“That is why we cannot understand the latest restrictions, closing discos and pubs and limiting the opening hours of bars and restaurants at the national level.” 
“This is a discriminatory measure that penalises those who have been doing the right thing from the very beginning.  We have done everything that was asked of us, we have the safest beaches in Europe with a plots system and controlled access, with all tourist businesses committed to the safety of our tourists and personnel,” AICO concluded.