Mayor of Torremolinos, Pedro Fernández Montes, described the statements from Juan Carlos Martín Fragueiro, as a barbarity and a new attack on the Costa del Sol, while in Benalmádena the Mayor, Javier Carnero, said the law did not understand the idiosyncrasies of this type of business, even though no restaurants in Benalmádena would be affected.Ley de Costas has to be respected and chiringuito beach restaurants be removed from the sand, ten large municipalities on the Costa del Sol say they are having none of it.They say they simply do not have the space to relocated the beach restaurants and say the economic cost of moving them and the threat to workers jobs also has to be considered.There is a clause in the Ley de Costas which allows exceptions when, given the nature of the construction of the beach restaurant, it cannot be moved, and now the local ayuntamientos say they are to use that clause to defend the status quo.
Mayor of Fuengirola, Esperanza Oña, said the movement of the chinguitos would lead to the elimination of the Paseo Marítimos, and that would prove disastrous for the local economy.
In Marbella, where 98% of the beach restaurant licences have expired, the Councilor for the Environment, Antonio Espada, said they did not want to see the restaurants disappear from the sand.

Holidaymakers affected by the growing credit crunch have deserted Benidorm, as Spain’s traditionally strong and resilient tourist industry sees a downturn during the peak season.Visitor numbers to beach resorts along Spain’s Costa del Sol dropped by eight per cent in July, as the government makes a pledge of €500 million to upgrade facilities.This unprecedented decrease in foreign visitor numbers in July has meant deserted bars, empty sun loungers and highly-discounted offers extending the length of the Costa del Sol, and has sent a warning signal throughout the industry.“The drums of crisis have started to roll,” says the vice-chairman of the Alliance for Tourism Excellence, Jose Luis Zoreda. “The outlook is stormy. There’s nothing to indicate that the rest of the year will compensate for the fall in business that occurred in July.”Compared with July of 2007, the area saw a drop of eight per cent in the number of foreign tourists in July of 2008. Between April and June, the numbers of holidaymakers from the UK dropped by five per cent, although Spain remains the favourite overseas destination for Brits. French, Italian and Swiss visitors also came in lesser numbers.The areas worst hit have been Andalusia, the Balearics, the Canary Islands, Catalonia and Valencia.Even domestic tourists, typically fiercely loyal to their own resorts, have decreased their holiday spending by thirty per cent, in a trend that increasingly shows “signs of instability”, according to the tourism and industry ministry.

Adding to Spain’s economic problems, the Costa del Sol has turned into the Costa del Gloom. The sun still shines, but the economic storm clouds have been gathering for some time and are now raining on the property developers’ parade.
Holiday and retirement homes that once looked like sure shot investments are now dropping in value. Apartments, often bought by speculators, have fallen in value by a third in the last year. Their owners – many from elsewhere in Europe – want to sell, but with mortgages difficult to get, there are few buyers.
More and more building projects are being put on hold, although the infrastructure is in place the homes will have to wait for better times.
After years of strong demand, fuelled by low interest rates, the Spanish property bubble finally burst. One of the most high profile victims was Spain’s largest developer Martinsa-Fadesa, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month.
Economics professor Juan Carlos Martinez said it is just the beginning: “What is clear is that many companies are facing a very complicated situation in which they have bought land, getting seriously in debt to do so and that, in today’s world you have to pay the money back. So if they are not getting any money from their principle business which is the sale of property what they have to do is get rid of dead weight, that is to get rid of certain assets they may have.”
The economic downturn has seen nearly a quarter of a million people have joined the jobless rolls in the last three months. In Spain’s building sites, the signs read ‘Not hiring.’
One unexpected side effect, French vineyards are seeing the return of Spanish grape pickers. For several years, they had had so much work back home that the flow of seasonal workers across the border had all but stopped. This year 12,000 are expected for the harvest in southern France.

"Many people realise they aren't going to sell their homes in a month of Sundays and are just walking away," .Banks have been incredibly slow to alter their valuation criteria and take account of the crash, but nonetheless, their figures show the kinds of reductions that are now available. A one two-bedroom apartment near Fuengirola, for example, was recently valued at £148,000 and has dropped to £84,000 – that's £64,000 less. Another two-bed property in the same location is listed at £44,000 less than its valuation. One lovely villa in Marbella valued on paper at £570,000 is now on the market at £492,000, a drop of nearly £80,000.

villas and quality apartments in good locations that have dropped by as much as £20,000 to £80,000. Some high-end properties costing over £1m have lost £200,000 off their initial valuations in the past few months. Sellers are also gravitating towards auction houses, where properties can achieve a fast sale at knock-down prices. Inez Rix of Direct Auctions says she has seen a huge increase in business from owners desperately trying to offload property. "Things are getting worse and people are dropping prices drastically where they can."
On Direct Auction's website, properties are being listed as much as 60 per cent below their original valuations.
As property prices dip, Rix has seen an increase in the number of owners falling into negative equity, and the banks are sitting on a growing cache of repossessions. One would expect the institutions to sell them off at rock-bottom prices but this is not happening, because there is no precedent of mass repossessions in Spain.
"The banks are being slow to sell properties to cover their costs but we expect more properties to come on to the market over the next two years." Which means anyone prepared to play a waiting game could bag a real bargain.
Most properties showing big reductions are new-builds, bought by investors hoping to sell before completion and in advance of the mortgage kicking in, a practice known as flipping. However, there are also rural properties and exclusive estates being sold at rock-bottom prices by owners who have simply been caught out by the upheaval.
Derek Blaney stopped selling off-plan several years ago when he saw the market becoming overheated and says more responsible agents are glad that the recent scandals and market forces have made the industry more transparent. "Things had to be cleaned up," he says. "Property was being seen as a sheer commodity, people were buying through greed and with no emotional attachment."
Who can blame buyers when they were being wooed with promises of huge returns that now seem impossible? With the credit crisis biting deep, there may be further room for prices in Spain to fall. For those who bought in Spain a year or two ago, none of this will come as any consolation. But for those looking to buy a place in the sun, it's worth following the selling prices of the nicer properties, and steering well clear of vast developments. At some stage, the outlook will change. It may not boom, but it must at some stage level off. And buyers who get the timing right could be on to a good deal indeed.

Cargoes of cannabis shipped undercover of darkness over the Strait from Ceuta to the Costa del Sol.Details have been released of a National Police operation against a drug smuggling gang which operated between Ceuta and the Costa del Sol, and which brought large amounts of cannabis into Spain illegally. Central government offices in Ceuta said eleven arrests have taken place in Marbella, Estepona< and Ceuta, and that six of them were from the Autonomous City, two from Málaga province, and the remaining three were Moroccan.It has been a joint investigation on both sides of the Strait, which brought information that the gang planned to make a drugs run to Estepona on the 5th of this month. The haul amounted to more one and a half tons of cannabis, and would, according to information from EFE, have brought the smugglers almost 2.5 million €.Also confiscated in the operation were the Zodiac boat the smugglers used for the trip across the Strait of Gibraltar, a stolen van and two other vehicles, satellite telephones, and GPS navigation equipment.

The driver of the vehicle who is in his early 20s is well known to Limerick gardai investigating ongoing criminal and gangland activity in the city.He has just returned to Limerick from Spain where he was in the company of murdered Dublin criminal Paddy Doyle until days before he was shot dead
Siezed bullet-proof BMW worth €100,000 belonging to a leading member of one of the country's most dangerous criminal gangs after a high-speed car chase.The driver of the car, who is a close relation to the vehicle's owner, was arrested following the pursuit after he failed to stop the high-performance vehicle at a garda checkpoint in Limerick city.Officers also recovered a bullet-proof vest in the vehicle. The arrested man is likely to face charges in connection with the incident.The top-of-the-range black BMW, which was fitted with bullet-proof glass at a cost of €100,000 to the owner, belongs to a leading member of the Dundon-McCarthy gang. The car owner, who is behind bars, and the arrested driver remain a target for gangs based in the St Mary's Park area of the city.The vehicle remains impounded following the high speed chase on Tuesday.

The mother of missing Amy Fitzpatrick has vowed to travel "the length of Spain and Gibraltar" in the hope of finding the teenager.
The 15-year-old vanished after leaving her friend's house near Feungirola, in Spain, at 10pm on New Year's Day. She set out on the 20-minute walk to her own house, but has not been seen since.
Despite a search of the surrounding area by the Guardia Civil and huge publicity in the Spanish media, there have been no positive sightings of the teenager since she vanished.
There had been reported sightings of Amy in Wexford but this has been ruled out by gardai.
Yesterday, Audrey Fitzpatrick said she will travel across the country to try and raise awareness of her daughter's disappearance.
"We just feel so helpless," she said. "It is now 22 days since Amy went missing and there has been nothing at all for the Guardia Civil to go on.

Researchers learned yesterday, thanks to an interview that the father of Amy granted to a tabloid newspaper, that Amy Fitzpatrich was offered a job as a model and an offer to participate in a photo session. According to the father, the girl was told by phone three days before her disappearance from the Costa del Sol.

Stewart "Specky" Boyd, 40, died with his daughter Nicola, her friend and a three-year-old girl when the Audi coupe he was driving veered across a motorway on Spain's Costa del Sol and hit a BMW, killing two occupants.
Earlier investigations had suggested the former Glasgow enforcer's death could have been a professional hit over a pounds 2.5 million cocaine deal.
But Spain's chief traffic officer said there was no evidence to support claims that a timed bomb had been placed underneath the vehicle.
The cause of the accident is still being investigated by police in Spain. Scottish police have been helping with the inquiry.
Scottish Police arrested three men in connection with the assassination attempt on the brother of gangland enforcer Stewart ‘Specky’ Boyd.
Squads of officers, wearing bullet proof vests, targeted a number of houses almost five months after an armed gang tried to gun down 48-year-old Hugh Boyd in a drive-by shooting near Barrhead’s busy town centre.
The raids, all simultaneous and carried out with military precision, happened during daylight and miles apart in different housing schemes.
One source said two of the men were held at one of the house swoops. A third was detained in the wake of another raid.
The source added: “The men cops were after didn’t stand a chance – I don’t think they knew what had hit them. A squad of cops were at the door of homes one moment and inside the next.Horrified Boyd was hit as five shots rang out while he sat behind the wheel of a red Vauxhall Vectra at the junction of Southpark Avenue and Glen Street, close to Barrhead Library, at around 9.30am on August 29 last year
At the time, sources said he survived because he ducked and the bullets shot by him. He was later taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.
Armed response officers, carrying automatics weapons, were among the first at the scene. Shocked residents said children would have been in the street if the hit had happened 45 minutes earlier. Police cordoned off the usually quiet area as forensic searched for clues.
Officers were also comparing notes on a series of other shootings in Pollok and Nitshill. And police in Paisley were checking out possible links with the Stock Street drive-by shooting last August when teenager Andrew Devlin was blasted to death. A pal with him, 26-year Gerald O’Doherty is still seriously ill in hospital.
Spanish national police probing the death of a Scottish gangster whose sports car burst into flames ruled out claims it was a Scottish Mafia assassination over a bungled drugs deal, but the full report as to the cause of the accident and the mystery surrounding the fire still remain.

Alexander Colin Dalgleish, aged 30-35, Gordon Stewart, 25-30, Paul Turner (also known as Paul Francis or Geddes), 50-55, Joshua Karney, 25-30, who also goes by five other names, and Kamil Krawiec, 25-30. missing of the sex offenders list in the U.K.
British pedophiles and rapists are settling on the Costa del Sol.Interpol has alerted the Guardia Civil in the past few months about a dozen sexual predators believed to be based along the Mediterranean Coast.
The British murderer Tony Alexander King, sentenced to 55 years in prison, for killing two Spanish girls in Malaga was living in Spain with the Spanish Police having no idea of the long list of sexual offences he had committed in the UK. Since then, British and Spanish security forces have been working much more closely together.
The British colonies along the coast are the ideal place for these criminals to blend in and go almost unnoticed. Michael Dugdale, a 60 year-old expat, wanted for the last 30 years for over 30 cases of sexual aggression and child abuse, was discovered last year living very comfortably in Mazarron.
Many of those settling here have served prison sentences in the UK and so the police cannot keep a close watch on them. Many may have learnt their lesson and come here to make a fresh start.

Terra España quoted information from the EFE news agency that the Civil Guard have organised a search party with the help of volunteers and emergency services, which meets at the Cala de Mijas football ground at 9am on Wednesday. They continue to investigate if there is any truth in a number of phone calls they have received about the case which are understood to have come from many different areas.
They are also investigating known British paedophiles who live in the area.