Beach concessions versus ‘right to put up a sunshade’: round three

Round three of the intense debate, opened by APA environmental agency, over the rights (or otherwise) to put up a sunshade has now verged into new territory.

With APA insisting that its initial announcement is to be ‘followed’ (that the beaches are for everyone, and rules forbidding sunshades in front of concession areas are ‘abusive’), concession holders have decided to play the ‘health and safety’ card.

AISCOMA (standing for the Association of Algarve Beach Concession Holders) warns that allowing sunshades in front of concessions and close to the water could put lives in danger…

“It is an area that, if there is a particular situation (…) should be free for lifeguards to act in necessary conditions, for no-one to be in danger”, says president Artur Simão, quoted by Correio da Manhã today, which also carries an intriguing illustration: a beach concession area, stretching practically to the water’s edge, with a little row of sunshades taking up what remains of the available space.

Anyone who regularly frequents any national beach, will be able to see that the ‘beach image’ in CM today (reproduced above) is unrealistic: concessions simply do not extend in the way the image portrays. But AISCOMA’s warning has been underscored by president of the Portuguese Federation of Lifeguards, Alexandre Tadeia (as one might expect it would be, given that lifeguards are hired, and paid, by the holders of beach concessions, not by any local or central government entity).

The one ‘positive’ coming from APA’s clarification is that lifeguards will now no longer be ‘controlling the placing of sunshades’ (as they were seen to be doing last weekend, when beachgoers found themselves told to ‘move on’ from areas they had only recently learned were now available to them). Alexandre Tadeia told CM that the responsibility of checking sunshades will now fall to Maritime Police….

With a new weekend approaching, in which temperatures are expected to start climbing again, it will be interesting to see if there is a ‘round four’ in this latest saga, or if beach concessions finally start accepting the ‘new normal’.

Source: Correio da Manhã

Natasha Donn

Journalist for the Portugal Resident.