Five… five o’clock businesses that were checked on the beach of Kineta were found with violations regarding the area of ​​the beach they had occupied with umbrellas and sunbeds.

The checks were carried out on Thursday morning by mixed levels of the State Real Estate Service, while the businesses will be imposed the prescribed fines at the same time with the obligation to remove the umbrella seats for which there was no permit.

In more than 4,500 checks of complaints from citizens concerning beaches and coastal areas throughout the country, the Real Estate Services of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance proceeded during the previous 3 weeks.

During this time, extensive checks were carried out in cooperation with the Greek Police and the local Municipalities in more than 150 beaches and more than 750 businesses. The complaints that were examined came mainly through the MyCoast application but also through citizens’ phone calls to the local Real Estate Services.

The general picture from the mass checks of the last weeks is clearly improved compared to previous years as the majority of businesses operating on the beaches have complied with the new rules and the new legal framework. However, the audits of the complaints also revealed several violations, which ranged from the absence of signage to excesses of the occupied space by additional umbrella seats, other constructions as well as cases where the occupation was arbitrary without a concession contract.

All the prescribed administrative fines were imposed on all businesses that were found to be in violation, while in the cases where there was no contract, approximately 20 sealings were carried out of sections of beach that were illegally occupied by umbrella seats in areas such as Rhodes, Messolonghi, Volos, Corfu, Parga, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, etc. These sections returned for free use by citizens. The fines imposed total more than 800,000 euros.

It is noted that the 6 regions of the country that collected the most complaints nationwide and were checked as a matter of priority are the following:

  • Chalcidice: 1,396 complaints were examined. Controls were carried out at 8 beaches and 38 businesses where 8 violations were found.
  • I predicted: 873 complaints were investigated. The levels of auditors proceeded to checks on 6 beaches and 35 businesses where three violations were found.
  • Eastern Attica: 570 complaints were examined. During the checks on 17 beaches and 49 businesses in the area, 8 violations were found and a corresponding number of administrative measures were imposed.
  • Cyclades: 409 complaints were investigated. Checks were carried out at 10 different beaches and 37 businesses where only one violation was found.
  • Corfu: 325 complaints were investigated. From the checks on 3 beaches and 5 businesses, 3 violations were found.
  • Dodecanese: 163 complaints were investigated. From the controls carried out at 10 beaches and 23 businesses, 9 violations were found.

Finally, it is underlined that the checks are going to continue even more intensively in the next period, giving priority to those areas with the most complaints from citizens and also to those where there is an abundance of named complaints.