Mykonos bars face minuscule fine for illegal structures demolition

In the latest twist in the Mykonos saga, a new Environment Ministry legislative provision stipulates that if the Principote and Nammos bars on the island demolish all of their illegal structures by early May, they will pay a minuscule fine of just 500 euros instead of the millions first envisaged. This possibility arose in the provision introduced a fortnight ago and the two companies have already submitted a request to the Syros Building Authority to carry out the demolitions at their own initiative.

Under the new legislation, the owners can inform the local building authority that they are going to proceed voluntarily with the demolition of the illegal structure within 10 days of the date they receive the report from the inspector. If they do so within that time frame, the building authority will appoint a building inspector (i.e. a private person) to carry out the demolition and the restoration of the land built upon and impose a fine of 500 euros, while at the same time, the hefty fines will be canceled and the criminal proceedings suspended.

However, as past experience has shown, particularly for detached structures, offenders tend to remove them to avoid fines and then re-erect them. For this reason, the law states that the voluntary removal procedure applies only once to the same property and that fines are normally imposed in the event of recurrence.

In the case of Principote in Panormos, this means that instead of paying a fine of 22.2 million euros for construction and maintenance, the owners can settle their obligations with 500 euros. However, they will have to demolish 40,000 square meters of illegal constructions, which is hardly achievable within the 10-day deadline.

For Nammos, the illegality concerns two buildings (520 sq.m. and 40 sq.m.) which are easier to demolish. But because the work was in progress, an immediate demolition is foreseen, as is a removal of the operating license.