Quarrels under the sun

The high season is in full swing. Even on the relatively quiet island of Lesvos you will now encounter traffic jams. All the cars have been rented out, no motorcycles are to be found and the thousands of cars of the visiting Greeks from the mainland and the thundering speed of some crazy womanizers make the traffic more dangerous than ever.

You can find the latest traffic jam along the beach at Petra, where two beachbars have made the beach so popular, that in daytime cars are parked on both side of the road and it is full of arriving and departing visitors.

Last year the first beachbar opened. It attracted only young people because of its deafening boom-boom music. This year the music became less loud, but then a second bar appeared and a lot, lot more customers. Once quiet Petra has now become booming business, but I wonder if everybody is happy with that. There are enough disco-islands in Greece where the young people can act as crazy as they like. I really hope that Petra is not a foretaste of such a place for Lesvos.

Except for some complaints from old Petra customers that see their peace and quiet threatened and some car drivers who are in too great a hurry, there are no problems about. On the beach at Hellenikon, near Athens there is trouble. Last Saturday fights broke out between visitors to the beach and workers from the municipality which saw the beach barred by bouncers from the nightclubs that seem to run the beach at night.

At the beginning of the summer season the mayor of Agios Kismas, the municipality where the Hellenikon beach is, started a hunger strike against the apparently illegal nightclubs at the beach, that also controlled the beaches in daytime, by asking lots of money for admittance. Last week, aided by a regional or national politician, who was probably well paid for it, a national court said that the nightclubs could resume their malpractices, while the municipality was against it. The law may not be written, but in Greece all beaches should be accessible to all people and this law is more and more threatened by people wanting to earn money, aided by politicians who only have to hold out their hands.

No, Greek law is still conducted far differently than the European way. Like the fight in Eftalou. Last year two sisters, who spend 2 to 3 months in their summerhouse in Eftalou, complained about the neigbouring restaurant Anatoli. They claimed that the new part of the restaurant, which has been there for years, was illegal and Angelo, the owner, didn't have a license for a restaurant, but only for a cafetaria.

The fight between lawyers and prosecutors took months. Untill deep in wintertime Anatoli risked closure from one day to the next. In the new year the fight seemed to have died down. Until the sisters returned this summer and refueled the fight. Now the mayor can do no more and the sad fact is that Anatoli has to close at the end of August.

In Greece you will find illegal buildings everywhere, but as long as nobody complains, no action is taken. The rule that if an illegal building has already stood for years, becomes legal, is no help in this case.

So Angelo is wrong with his illegal building. But nobody thinks of the importance of restaurant Anatoli in the municipality of Molyovs. Anatoli is the only restaurant that stays open in the winter (restaurant Eftalou closes for some months in the winter) and is a beloved place for daytrippers that come in their numbers on nice weekends to Molyvos. Anatoli is a unique place by the sea and where will the daytrippers go when everything is closed in Eftalou? And I don't even mention the high quality of the food served in Anatoli.

So who gets bothered by restaurant Anatoli, except two soured spinsters who only come to Eftalou for two months in summer in order to lock themselves up in their house, only coming out for their morning bathe in the sea? I'm bothered by their desert-like garden where two years ago they cut all the trees and that now has no flowers colouring the garden, I'm bothered by their spotless house where all the shutters are always closed and only one gets opened when the sisters are there.

And now that we are talking about cutting down trees, in the agora of Molyvos a part of the wysteria is threatened of being cut. This perhaps 200 year old wysteria, which covers the agora at the beginning of the summer with its colourful and beautifully scented flowers, is apparently damaging a house. The owner has no other solution than to cut this magnificent antique plant. For years already the various mayors have prevented this. But now it seems that the house owner found a way and managed to make a first cut to one of its enormous main branches. Are you against this destruction? Send me an email and I will see to it that it reaches the action committee.

It's a pity that nobody could talk sense into the two sisters and it's a pity that nobody found a better solution for the problem with the wysteria. One thing is sure: in Greece you either need to have a lot of money or you need friends in high places. Then you can have everything your way.

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

The fall of Anatoli

Once upon a time there were two sisters who came from Molyvos. When they got old they moved to Athens. Two or three months a year they went back to their birthplace, where they had a house in Eftalou. They rebuilt the old house into a brand new white villa where they could hide for the summer, never opening the shutters. When the house was finished they did their garden. All the trees and the beautiful reed beds were destroyed. The result was an empty garden and they kept it like that.

Maybe they now had a better view of the sea, but also a better view of their neighbours who suddenly seemed very close. One neighbour was a woman with some studios besides the main building. It seems that this lady illegally built a new kitchen, which became an eyesore in the eyes of the sisters, even though you barely saw the difference between the old and the new building. And think that maybe that widow (the neighbour) is making some money from tourism.

However, the other neighbours were worse. For 20 years they had one of the two restaurants in Eftalou, the terrace by the sea was roofed 15 years ago. This was no problem and this neighbour was always there to give the sisters a helping hand with any problems. They even phoned him in the middle of the night because two youngsters were trying to make love on their doorstep.

But still this neighbour was not good enough. His business probably did too well. He built a mini golf and beautified his terrace. The sisters did not like these things, so they started complaining, first about the smoke coming their way when the neighbour was cooking tasty dishes for his clients. Then suddenly there was a Greek night for children. The sisters had to endure 3 hours of Greek live-music until nine oclock at night. They also imagined that the mini golf course was operating 24 hours a day. Those sisters who come here for only two months a year have no idea how really quiet it can be in Eftalou. I can assure you that after the donkey safaris make their way home between 9 and 10 PM and the weekly Greek night turns off the live-music at 9 oclock, you only hear the crickets sing.

The sisters were thinking the neighbour had to go. They complained to the authorities and they could only say that indeed the building for the inside restaurant was illegal, and had been for 15 years. It is a beautiful spot where you enjoy the sea view during dinner all year round. But in Molyvos it is not allowed to build so close to the sea. And that is what the sisters thought: law is law.

These sisters who shut themselves in for two months in their house on the Eftalou Boulevard and only go out for a swim, managed to close down one of the two restaurants in Eftalou. Anatoli, also known by the name Angelos, who is the owner and cook of the restaurant, has to go, because these two ladies want peace in Eftalou.

They do not mind that Eftalou is quiet enough, except for the months they are staying there. They have no appreciation of the fact that in winter also one can eat at the seaside. They do not know how many people in the off season like to hike up to Molyvos and have lunch in Anatoli, one of the very few restaurants in the north open in the winter. The two sisters do not care for Eftalou, this beautiful green area next to Molyvos which is a peaceful place for everybody. These sisters, who made a desert of their garden and in doing so, made a hole in the line of greenery bordering the Eftalou Boulevard, maybe want to go back 50 years in time.

But the sisters have the law on their side. The Anatoli restaurant is an illegal building, where nearly everybody enjoyed a good meal and never complained. Now the sisters got irritated. Their boring house without any flowers or other welcoming ornament is how they are thinking: the neighbours restaurant has to go and the other neighbour will very much regret that she built an illegal kitchen.

They didnt leave the Molyvos authorities alone until they got what they wanted: Anatoli and its hard working chef had to close down and the other neighbour has to pay a lot of money. So the two sisters not only destroy a familys life, but also close down a restaurant where you could have a lovely time the whole year round, not only islanders, but tourists as well.

The municipality seems to do nothing. They do not see the importance of a livable and attractive Eftalou. They only keep themselves busy with the elections for a new mayor in October. No candidate sees any votes in it. The same fate is to befall Anatoli as the Hotel Arion, which after only one year was already doomed to become a Greek ruin. Everybody complains that there is nothing to do here in the winter. Well, no wonder... Sisters only staying here two months a year can pull the strings. And nobody is going to stick his neck out.

Is there no clause in this law that after 15 years, theres no way anymore to complain? It is sad to know that this famous restaurant has to close its doors at the end of August because these two sisters suddenly have complaints about a building where nobody has complained for 15 years. Everybody works for a good image so that lots of tourists will visit Molyvos and its surroundings. Nobody realizes that Anatoli is also one of the attractions in the region, not only for tourists but for all the people of Lesvos and for all year round. Please, give these sisters, who only stick their noses out of their garden for a swim and probably make no contribution at all to the welfare of Eftalou, what they deserve. It is typical Greek politics to complain about not enough tourists, but have no view at all how they can change that.

So if you agree with me and if you want Anatoli to stay open, please send me a mail so that I can forward this mail to the municipality, together with our petition. Those sisters should be ashamed. We are for a livable Eftalou!

Copyright © Smitaki 2006