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Staff Reporter THE small and medium business organisation, Afedeco, yesterday asked the head of the Ministry of Commerce, Josep Juan Cardona, to urge the Business Advisory Board to “urgently” and “without any delays” establish the main criteria that allows each town council to define itself as a tourist resort.

In turn this grants shops in these areas to open late and on Sundays and Bank Holidays, unlike those areas that have not been classed as a tourist resort.

When an area in the Balearic Islands has been classified as a tourist resort it makes it exempt from the normal business laws in force, for example the opening hours of shops on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

The tourist season will officially begin on 15 March and there still has been no decision on this matter, said the spokesperson for Afedeco.
As there is still a distinct lack of clear rules on this matter, it has meant that certain areas, for example Marratxí, which “is low on the scale as a tourist resort”, can ask for parts of the town (the Festival Park centre) to be excluded from the normal business laws and normal business opening hours, added the spokesperson.

In the organisation's opinion, this makes the Balearic business laws “completely void and with no content, that clearly discriminates one town to another, based only on the discretion of the council involved. This produces satisfactory results for only some towns”.

Above all the organisation has asked Cardona to “immediately write to the Marratxí town council, to curtail opening hours, at least provisionally, until a general solution has been found.” The Advisory Board, for its part, announced that a meeting will be held to discuss the matter on March 14.