Crackdown on Private Businesses around Havana

Crackdown on Private Businesses around Havana

May 2, 2013

By Alexis Cepero (Café Fuerte)



HAVANA TIMES — As part of a clampdown on violations of "city planning

legislation", Raul Castro's government is applying severe control

measures on privately-run business around the capital, many of which

have been shut down by authorities in recent months.



The National Institute for Urban Planning (IPF) has become the firm hand

of the Cuban government in its fight against alleged city planning

infractions, the mechanism through which it has decreed the closure of

hundreds of small private businesses in Havana.



The IPF is applying these harsh measures in the context of an official

campaign against infractions and misdemeanors, many of them identified

as violations of the city's urban planning and development code. On

April of last year, Raul Castro appointed Division General Samuel

Rodiles Planas director of the IPF and tasked him with bringing order

and discipline to this sector.



According to statements made by business owners affected by these recent

measures, all private businesses that operate locales on doorways, or

places which are considered part of the city's decorative environment,

will be shut down and forced to relocate to household or building interiors.



New Requirements and Control Measures



As part of this series of measures, business owners will now be barred

from renting out these types of spaces.



In addition to this and on the basis of Decree Law 272 of 2001 and 299,

passed on May 14, all locales built specifically to operate small

private businesses will be inspected to verify compliance with a whole

range of very strict requirements.



The IPF has now been empowered to carry out inspections and apply State

control measures. The Attorney General's Office, city courts, local

government Inspection Bureaus, the National Housing Bureau and other

bodies will also take part in these inspection efforts.



"I knew a good thing couldn't last long in Cuba. They simply had to

interfere, at one point," said Madyory Menendez, the owner of a

cafeteria which was shut down because it had been set up next to a

doorway facing Havana's busy avenue of Calzada de Diez de Octubre.



According to several individuals interviewed by CaféFuerte, IPF

officials reported that their offices are providing the public with

information about State-owned locales which the government is renting

out to business owners whose locales have been closed down.



Unkind Treatment



"They weren't exactly kind, they arrived and told me, straight out, that

I had to take everything down, showing me the Law, in writing," a

business owner said.



Decree Law 272, which sets down sanctions for violations of the urban

planning and development code, was published in Cuba's Official Gazette

on February 21, 2001. It establishes that, in addition to a fine, the

individual or entity can be subjected to other measures, such as being

forced to discontinue the illegal practice and to compensate the city

for damages caused.



It also empowers inspectors of the Urban Planning and Housing bureaus to

apply fines and other punitive measures. Similarly, Article 29

stipulates that, if a person fails to comply with a measure of this

nature, a competent State entity shall enforce the penalty and the

violator will be made to pay all related costs.



The enforcement of city planning legislation through the closing-down of

private businesses around the city is taking place a little over two

years after the Cuban government authorized the opening of these

businesses as an economic alternative for Cubans.



Some 400 thousand Cubans have been registered as self-employed since the

government authorized the granting of licenses for 181 different types

of private business activity, a fifth of which fall under the category

of food preparation and food product sales.



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