By Anthony O. Miller
JET-SKI rental operators threatened yesterday to mass outside the Presidential Palace tomorrow and stay there until President Glafcos Clerides comes out to hear their objections to proposed regulations they say may drive many out of business.
The threat was made at a news conference by Melios Georgiou, general- secretary of Povek (the Union of Small Businessmen and Retailers), umbrella labour organisation for the Cyprus Water Sports Association, which represents the jet-ski operators.
They are upset about a bill that would limit rental and use of jet-skis to six hours per day, and an imminent order by Communications and Works Minister Leontios Ierodiaconou that would consolidate jet-ski sea-access corridors on the margins of sandy swimming beaches.
Georgiou noted that on May 17, some 90 members of his union held a demonstration outside the Presidential Palace, at which they presented their grievances to Nicos Panayiotou, the director of President Glafcos Clerides’ office.
Georgiou said that the jet-ski operators felt them that Clerides would intervene with the House of Representatives and with Ierodiaconou on their behalf, but “it seems nothing has been done.” So, he said the demonstrators were coming back around noon tomorrow and staying until Clerides comes out and listens to them.
“It’s not going to be completely peaceful, just like last time,” Georgiou said. “We will insist to see the president. We will not leave until we see the president, and until a solution is presented,” Georgiou warned.
His mood appeared to reflect the anger felt by many of the jet-ski operators at the government’s plans to change their way of doing business.
The changes in the corridors and the hours of operation are the government’s reaction to at least three ski-jet accidents last year, which killed one British tourist and seriously injured three others.
A British tourist also died in a jet-ski last summer in Rhodes, and this year a British woman has been remanded for trial in Dubai for the jet-ski death of a Russian tourist.
Cyprus Water Sports Association President George Dimitriou said he had recently seen government workers – even before Ierodiaconou had signed the new order – setting buoys from the beach into the sea to mark the new corridors that Ierodiaconou’s order would designate for jet-ski access to open water.
A Public Works Department official, who declined to be identified, told The Sunday Maillast week that Ierodiaconou’s order was expected to take effect this week upon publication in the Official Gazette.
Nicos Pittocopitis, chairman of the House of Representatives Communications and Works Committee, told The Sunday Mailthe House was “ready to vote” this week on The High Speed Small Vessels Law, 1999 (Regulations), which will re-jig the rules of the road for all water craft in Cyprus, even canoes.
Pittocopitis said the Bill would restrict summer jet-ski rental and use hours to 10am to 1pm, and 4pm to 7pm, and would ban them during the 1pm to 4pm summer siesta. (Winter operation will be from 6.30am to 6.30pm, he added.)
Dimitriou called the corridor changes “unacceptable and the hour changes “impractical,” adding: “It’s not possible to make a living” with them.
He said the House Bill, while aimed at jet-skis, bans the siesta-hours use of all motorised vessels capable of carrying more than one person. This, he noted, could include private motor boats and yachts – even the yacht owned by Clerides.
Dimitriou said cramming several operators on the margins of swimming beaches would crowd jet ski numbers to dangerous levels at sea and also hurt competitors by forcing them to work side-by-side.
The government’s idea – that competing operators should become partners – ought was for individual owners to decide, he added.
Besides, Dimitriou said, moving the corridors from tourist areas would hurt business, as tourists do not “want to leave the comfort of their umbrellas” to walk long distances to hire a jet-ski.
Georgiou noted the current law allowed jet-ski access corridors to stay where they were until the end of 2000. “In the past, the passages have worked well,” he said.
“These changes should be properly studied, and the situation should not be changed in the middle of the season,” he said.
