The wave of the “towel movement” that broke out this summer in well-known tourist destinations in Greece, reached the beaches of Larissa and specifically the Municipality of Agia.

Yesterday, men from the Police Department of Agia proceeded to arrest of nine professionals as part of the traffic ticket for trespassing part of the beach, according to information.

The reason for the arrests is that in essence, they did not have the necessary permission to place umbrellas, sunbeds and table seatsin parts of the beach, but they had taken care to have taken all the necessary actions to obtain them from the competent services, but to no avail.

For the whole issue that has arisen, the mayor of Agia Antonis Goundaras requests the intervention of the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

In his letter he states the following:

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister

Agia lives today the paranoia of the results of the monster of the Greek bureaucracy. Professionals of the beaches are treated like criminals and arrested automatically, because while they have submitted their applications for the use of the beach since last year, the services of ETAD (“Public Real Estate Company S.A.”) did not even bother to answer until almost the end of the summer season.

This delay resulted in them not being able to submit applications to the public land agency for a beach concession and to deploy umbrellas and sunbeds on the beach.

– Despite the fact that they notified the Land Office of the Prefecture of Larissa both the applications they submitted to ETAD and the bank documents for the payment of the public rent determined by the company.

– Despite the fact that the Real Estate Company of our prefecture knew that ETAD delayed sending the lease contracts at the very moment it collected the rents and the guarantee.

– Despite all this, the Real Estate Company started proceedings for their expulsion, charged them exorbitant fines and ordered their arrest, because they “dared” after waiting for many months to install sunbeds and umbrellas at the end of July so that they could work for a living.

We are the first to implement and demand the implementation of legality. And we believe that legality should be practiced by all. But this also applies to public services! Which have the obligation to respond immediately and in any case for the case that concerns us before the start of the summer season.

When the government itself does not apply the law, how can one expect people who struggle to live from their jobs to apply it? Based on the pace at which the procedures are moving, these people this year while waiting for the contracts did not work, but waited patiently for the services to respond to them. Until summer arrived. Maybe they should wait until Christmas…

These are not serious things. We call on every responsible body to reflect on their responsibilities in facilitating entrepreneurship and ultimately to “break” the chains of bureaucracy that hold captive the development of our regions and the advancement of people who do business.

The people of the toil who are at the same time the source of the tax revenue of the public and of course we ask for your intervention Mr. Prime Minister so that our fellow citizens are immediately released.

This insanity must stop. Mercy!”