Stung by the announcement that concessionaire Nova Área will give up managing the six newsstands that remain in the city, Palma town hall is looking for solutions. A new tender is to be processed urgently, councillor Alberto Jarabo saying that there will be an "adjustment" to what a concessionaire has to pay. He adds that the possibility of selling more products will be studied so as to make newsstands "more profitable".
Last week, Nova Área made clear that managing the news kiosks was no longer feasible financially and that it has been telling the town hall this for some years. "The only response has been silence."
The company has managed the newsstands since 2010. The concession expires at the end of this month, and so the town hall is accelerating procedures. Jarabo says processing of a new tender may mean that there be "a season without active kiosks", but his department is working urgently in order to avoid this.
Opposition parties at the town hall have voiced their criticisms, Mercedes Celeste of the Partido Popular saying that Jarabo and the mayor, José Hila, "have shown that they do not know how to manage concessions and have accumulated one failure after another".