POLICE have been called upon after an Ayia Napa businessman’s premises were razed to the ground and his entire stock taken away while he was abroad in what he says is an attack by a vindictive landlord.
The incident happened ten days ago when Milan Garaca, the owner and operator of an off-licence and kiosk, was overseas. He received a phone call in the small hours from a distressed friend telling him that bulldozers were busy tearing down his establishment.
The premises are located on the busy Nissi Avenue in Ayia Napa.
Garaca asked his caller friend to rush to the scene to take some pictures of the destruction. He says the friend was threatened by the demolition crew, but managed to take the photos anyway.
In a state of panic, Garaca returned to Cyprus on the evening of the same day, only to also learn that the contents of his store had disappeared.
The construction alone, owned entirely by Garaca, cost somewhere in the area of £200,000. There is now only a pile of debris where it once stood.
Moreover, the shop contained some £80,000 worth of merchandise, which has also gone.
Business had been good, with a turnover of around £1 million.
An eyewitness to the demolition has told him that the contents of the shop were jammed into a container, which was then driven off to an unknown destination.
Now, Garaca says, he has been left with nothing but debt.
A naturalised Cypriot originally from Serbia, Garaca said he had a longstanding dispute with the owner of the land on which the shop stood.
The landlord, a well-known figure in the coastal town, is claiming Garaca has consistently failed to pay him rent.
But Garaca dismisses this as a pretext, saying he has the documents to prove he was making the payments.
“He was trying to get me evicted, and he grasped the opportunity to get rid of me by demolishing the shop while I was away.”
According to Garaca, the owner himself was at the site supervising the demolition.
What is fishy, in his opinion, was how such an undertaking – which took hours to complete – could have gone unnoticed.
“My place is in a very visible location. If, say, someone causes a disturbance or throws a rock at a house, the police will investigate. How was this allowed to happen?”
Garaca suspects the land owner might have tricked police into thinking his actions were legitimate, by showing them a copy of a prior court decision ordering Garaca to demolish part of the property.
The order had been issued because the land owner claimed Garaca did not possess a certificate of final approval for the premises from town planning authorities.
However, Garaca and his lawyer argue that the permission should be secured by the owner of the real estate, and not the operator of the establishment.
What’s more, Garaca later appealed against that ruling at the Supreme Court, which withheld judgment on the matter, so that in the meantime no action was allowed against the premises.
He has filed a complaint with the local police, and has written to the Justice Minister, the Attorney-general and the chief of police asking for an investigation.
Garaca is accusing the land owner of theft, malicious damage to his property, and illegal entry onto the premises.
Calling the demolition “a premeditated act of terrorism under cover of darkness,” he said he hoped justice would be served.
“I have faith in the authorities, but if this somehow does not end up in court, it would give out the wrong message: that justice is only for the bigshots, not for the little guy trying to make an honest living. I pray we don’t discover that some people looked the other way while this was happening.
“Someone just decides to come and tear down your shop, and nothing happens. What next?”
