The Almuñécar law courts are dealing with a denuncia made by the Policía Local against their own Town Hall over irregularities.

It was at the beginning of this month that the police accused the Town Council of allowing certain businesses (chiringuitos) to operate without having obtained an opening licence.

Not only that, but the police also claim that the Town Hall denied them access to documents in the course of their investigation, which the police consider was a “clear blocking manoeuvre.”

The Town Hall roundly denies this and states that the Policía Local have access to any kind of information “through legal channels.”

According to the police, this all started in the summer of 2020 when on the 30th of July, after a complaint about noise at one of the said establishments (on the Paseo Puerta del Mar) which turned out to lack an opening licence. The police wrote up a report, requesting that steps should be taken to have it closed down, yet the business was allowed to continue operating until the following year.

In August, 2021, the Chief of Police gave orders to his officers to return to the establishment to check if they had obtained an opening licence but it still hadn’t, despite the Town Hall being well aware of the situation.

Consequently, officers went around to the Town Hall to see the relevant files on the situation but were denied access to them (according to the police). The officers said that they were told by one of the clerks that this was under instructions from the Councillor for Urbanismo y Actividades, Francisco García.

However, these instructions were supposedly for all hostelry establishments within the municipality, not just the one in question.

The police demanded the refusal in writing as this was an obstruction to police business, they considered, and then sent an official letter to the Municipal Secretary via the union representative for Town Hall workers, reporting the situation. They also brought it to the attention of the Public Prosecutor to see if there was a case.

The Municipal Secretary responded to the letter stating that access had not been denied but that such a request should be made through the Jefe de Servicio.

However, that same August the police requested permission to see the file on another chiringuito, this time on the Paseo de Andrés Segovia in La Herradura; the established had a police seal put in place months earlier to deny access but the owners had removed it and were operating. A neighbour had since complained about the noise.

They reported this to the Municipal Secretary but to date have still not had access to the relevant files.

The Councillor for Urbanismo y Actividades, Francisco Javier García, denies the accusation levied and says that officers have complete access to the information: “It is completely false. Officers have total access to this information as long as it is requested through official channels and is requested by the Chief of Police. They cannot just turn up, off duty, to see files, some from years back,” adding, “nobody has been denied this information and there has been conflict with some officers for years,” concluding, “some take the law into their own hands.”

If all this were not enough, a pen drive with a recorded conversation between Councillor Francisco García, The Councillor for Citizen Safety, Francisco Robles and a police officer that appears to be the Chief of Police, was left in a post box inside an envelope. It was handed in to the judge by the Policía Local both because it could have been obtained illegally and because the content was pertinent to the case.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)