THE REAL REASON FOR THE BAD SMELLS IN PLAYA DE MOGÁN

In Playa de Mogán, 28st of July 2017

Last Friday 21st of july 2017, the mayor of Mogán, Onalia Bueno, blamed the hotels and restaurants of Playa de Mogán, for the bad smells in this very popular village for tourists in the South of Gran Canaria. According to her, we are discharging used fat in our kitchens directly into the sewage system. As our association also represents the restaurants (almost 70% of the local commerce) we felt the need to answer this communication and explain to the public the real reason for the constant bad smells in and around the village.

We certainly do not want to complain about the opening of big hotels in this formerly quiet and peaceful village, but did anyone calculate how much excrement 1000 people produce? A logical calculation of production with the opening of the 5 star hotel Radison Blu last December 2016 can be made by multiplying the average production of one person per day - 150 g of poop and 2 litres of urine - by 1000.

Of course, we are sure that the foreign investor in the the Radison Blu, like us, paid a lot of money in local licences and taxes. It is too bad that the local government has not decided to invest that money in improving the installations and taking away the existing bad smells, in order to guarantee better  services to tourists - a promise that was made during their election campaign in 2015.

Last April, as foreseen, the continuous obstructions in the sewerage system caused a leak of faecal waste water. The local beach which had received the European flag of safe beach, was immediately closed. Local commerce and restaurants suffered financial loss for more than a week. But no one complained because we understood that the safety of the people always goes first above any financial interest. Unfortunately, we feel that does not count for the local government which has choosen a strategy of destruction; blaming others, and threats of inspections and fines, instead of taking responsibility and responding to the many reports indicating that the local sewage system cannot support the rising number of visitors.

No local newspaper or anyone of the local government asked our opinion or reaction to the mayor's accusation that we are to blame for this uncomfortable community problem. To defend ourselves we need to publish our defence on our own page in our own time when most of us are working every day in his or her shop or restaurant. This unfortunately also proves that even the local press prefers financial interest over press neutrality, which should be the ethical basis of their profession.

The search for the real reason of the bad smells in Playa de Mogán, WILL BE CONTINUED…….