Illegal beach bar shut down while island demolitions frozen
The Santa Marina beach bar, which has been operating illegally for years, was shut down on Thursday in Agia Marina on the island of Rhodes. The business had been given a deadline of two weeks by the Municipal Committee of Rhodes in order to resolve many legal issues. Meanwhile, demolitions of arbitrary buildings on the coasts of the Dodecanese islands are up in the air after the Legal Council of the State ruled in favor of a freeze on demolitions. It opined on the matter after the recent amendment of the legislation by which the Dodecanese lost, for reasons of equity, the privilege of having longer coastlines and beaches than the rest of Greece. The Legal Council opined that the hundreds (400 in Rhodes alone) of demolition protocols should be reviewed with new inspections before they are implemented. Given the understaffing of relevant services, the decision gives a lease on life of at least two years to those who encroached and/or built arbitrarily on the coasts of the islands.
