One of the partners of developer Joseph Portelli has set his sights on popular Marsalforn restaurants as his next business target.
Acquiring two restaurants in Marsalforn’s popular Menqa, next to the Calypso Hotel, Agius has now filed a Planning Authority application to sanction various illegal works he has already finished without seeking a permit.
In the typical fashion of ‘construct now, sanction later’, Mark Agius, known as Ta’ Dirjanu, combined two restaurants, ‘Latini’ and ‘il-Pulena’, and made several internal alterations, installed awnings, and changed the configuration of his new business venture to increase his restaurant’s capacity.
Just before summer, Agius completed all the illegal work to operate his business. He then filed PA05035/24, through his sister, Maria, to sanction all the work done.
The Planning Authority has not yet issued its recommendation. However, the application is expected to be approved after the ongoing consultations.
Agius’s restaurants are two of several taking over il-Menqa.
Almost all former boathouses on the waterfront of the once-fishing village have been turned into fully fledged restaurants, occupying public space with illegal canopies, tables, and chairs.
Apart from the restaurants owned by Agius, almost all the other restaurants in the same area have some illegality – from canopies and makeshift enclosures to the occupation of public land without a permit.
A number of enforcement notices issued by the Planning Authority over decades were never enforced, allowing the restaurants to continue their business activity unhindered.
A masterplan for the area, promised by various Labour Gozo ministers over the years, including recently by embattled Minister Clint Camilleri, has never been implemented.
This is not Agius’s first venture in the restaurant business.
Following his involvement with Joseph Portelli and Daniel Refalo in building hundreds of flats across Gozo, Ta’ Dirjanu bought Terrazzo restaurant in Xlendi two years ago. The Xlendi restaurant developed over the years from a simple kiosk to a massive dining area, mostly on public land, with great views.
Ta’ Dirjanu’s business career is riddled with abuse of planning laws and others ignored by the authorities.
The most extraordinary illegality, which continues to this day, is an illegal concrete batching plant set up in a quarry owned by the Lands Authority in Kerċem. The Gozo ministry is one of the illegal batching plant’s clients.
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Take note and boycott them all. I will. Government is complicit in all the rampant corruption and illegalities. It sides with the outlaws. As for the illegal batching plant and the ruination of the once cute village of Kercem, Government deserves “A plague o’ both your houses!”
Is anyone ever going to say no to this ridiculous process?
So he carries out ILLEGAL works then applies for a permit which, because of his “connections” is approved.
As always the family does what it wants.
Quality tourists coming to see flats?
I cant understand how these people get richer and richer with the business
they make and the PN with the business they make they make debit only even with the easy money they get from marathons and you forgot which business man chambray was given by the pn
Sanctions are a legal way for money laundering as thousands of euros pass under the table.
There are no rules, just the whims of the board that does the sanctioning
Thanks to the Shift team for indicating which eateries law-abiding citizens can avoid should they ever decide to go to Gozo – and specifically to Marsalforn and Xlendi – once again.
The lawlessness and delinquency of some surpasses the imagination.
In Gozo the principle of ‘nitnajjik’ seems to have grown deeper and stronger roots – now that the system of omerta’ and criminal silence has been raised to regional levels. This has transpired clearly enough in the local councillor’s boast that it is in the Gozitan culture to cover up criminal activity by the Island’s hunters and trappers.
Many of us have experienced that kind of omerta’ when, to a simple question about a locality or other, we are faced with a ‘ma nofx, habojb’ answer from a local interlocutor.
As in the case of many other Maltese, previously fascinated by the Gozo countryside and milieu, my own prospects of visiting the Island for even a short holiday are dwindling – if not utterly vanishing.
The latest straws were the selfish greed shown by the Gozo caterers in their disregard for a 3-hour break in the Gozo Channel’s Christmas and New Year’s schedule as well as the idiotic – but verging on the delinquent – comment by the Councillor equating complicity in crime with good-neighbourly cooperation.
All this with the blessings of the Prime minister, just asking?
Are we supposed to be surprised ??
They are only allowed all these illegal structures because u der this PL Government there is absolutely zero enforcement
As a side question. Were these 2 restaurants open for business recently? And another question, although I very much doubt I will get an answer. How much VAT was collected on services provided? Ehm ….
Connected to previous correspondence. Ah, you fool Peter you are talking about gozo.
The Gozo Ministry is a client, why do you think they get away with it?
And PL had the chance to take it and give it back to the public but chose not to do so and instead opted to endorse what PN had done. And you are surprised how these people get richer and richer with the business they make?! They hardly need to move a finger; they have riches from the public coffers showered upon them.
Of course. Need ask?
Isn’t that what the Gozitans want? Well, let them have it and enjoy their own lawlessness. It’s up to the Maltese to say ‘we don’t like what you did with the place’ and just go somewhere else.
Hasil ta flus hi! Hemm zviluppatur bil laqam jibda bil G anke bid drogi qabduh u issa nitten kull rokna gewwa Ghawdex!
Yep! Exactly so!! But Gozo is a jewel!
Stealing public land to make business with it together, stealing our money and in the meantime feeding us the gullible that its for us, for millions worth of nonsense projects…..and the list continues. Thats how they got millions in their bank accounts.
Do not write rubbish! Its like that even in Malta! And for your info you lot are ruining Gozo debting yourselves aquiring garbage of holes biex tmorru tistaghgbu!!
Ofcourse! He is in business with them!! Use your brain!.
Tell it to the corrupt politicians that are all in business with these filthy people and not the Gozitans! X oddju!.,
?ma nofx, habojb? this you could have done without. Condescending and patronising. I’m a Gozitan that is utterly disgusted by the going ons in the sister island. But i’m equally disgusted by the happenings of the mother island. With all due respect, good Gozitans exist and they don’t deserve your condescending attitude towards them.
Oh, the ‘you made your bed now lie in it argument. With that same logic, Malta deserves it’s current politicians with all the shenanigans they’ve brought. What a stupid argument. Let’s take it a step further, ”it’s up to the Europeans to say ‘we don’t like what you did with the place” and just go somewhere else. Grow up ffs! Let the few good law abiding citizens unite and fight for the country, rather than fall down to petty tribalism.
??????
Nerga nghid. Iz zewg partiti l istess.huma jghidu li huma differenti imma biex daqqa jithanzer wiehed u daqqa l iehor. Inzabbab inbaxxijhom u nivvota.
Lili u lilek jghidu le u jsalbuna ghax jghidulek ksirt il ligi. Iz zghir tih go rasu.
“the application is expected to be approved after the ongoing consultations” – that is to say ongoing negotiations on how much it’ll cost the developer in terms of brown envelope. What a government! – and what a bunch of retards who voted it in!
They should all be jailed. But the current Opposition was and will never be any better.
Prosit! Im with you!
You may both feel free to disagree with what I wrote – only that my comment stems from decades-long experience and not from conjecture!!
I might be inclined to think that their VAT far surpasses other restaurateurs in the area. And not necessarily that they were busier. I’ll leave it at that.