The introduction of car parking payment blue zones (ORA) in Puerto Andratx has been greeted with widespread opposition.
The regional ports authority has established the ORA parking on the avenues Almirante Riera Alemany, Mateo Bosch and Gabriel Roca. Among the critics are representatives from the sailing club who consider the system to be "a tax, pure and simple". The regional government is therefore being urged to create car parks, which "would not be for lack of space".
The sailing club believes that the ORA system will be unproductive and be harmful to "all society, users, taxpayers and businesspeople." Its criticisms are echoed by workers at the Rincón del Puerto restaurant. They think it is "a disgrace" that workers in Puerto Andratx will not have an alternative to paying to park. As with the sailing club, they believe that a car park should have been created first so that, among others, people employed in the area but who live outside Andratx can have somewhere to park.
A restaurant owner says that the ORA will just make it more difficult to find waiters. She adds that workers who eat at the restaurant only have half an hour and that they will either have to pay to park or spend time trying to find somewhere else to park.
A waiter at another restaurant says that there is no alternative to paying for parking in the port, above all for those who work there.