Costas prohibits the City Council from Cross port hold the concert that has traditionally been held in Garden Beach because of the night of San Juan. A warning forces the City Council to suspend musical performances on the nearest beach this Friday, June 23 to the Castle of San Felipe, although for the moment the forecast is that people gather to enjoy the party around small bonfires in this area of the northern coast. The mayor of Porto, Marco González (PSOE)regrets this decision by Costas, but remembers that already in 2022 they were sanctioned for locating the stage in an area declared as public domain, “Like practically all the places where events are organized in Puerto de la Cruz”.
Marco Gonzalez recognizes that the usual thing in recent years was that Costas did not respond to the request for authorization of these activities in Playa Jardín “nor to practically any of the activities that we organize in a city that has maritime land public domain most of Playa Jardín and the surroundings of the castle or the esplanade of the pier or the Martiánez area». A silence that allowed its development. That changed in June 2022, when Costas del Estado denied the authorization of the concerts at Playa Jardín at the last moment, “at 11:30 a.m. on June 23 and, in barely two hours, we presented an appeal in which we explained the importance of the Festival of San Juan and its tourist interestbut that was not enough to apply the exceptions provided for the Law of Coasts», laments the mayor of Porto.
“There are no alternative places to celebrate the Fiesta de San Juan if we take it from the beach”
Costas considers that there are alternative places to organize these festivities in Puerto de la Cruz. A statement that is not shared by the mayor, who believes that “There are no alternative places to celebrate the Fiesta de San Juan if we take it from the beach”. He rejects that this party generates a deterioration in the environment and ensures that “the behavior of the population and cleaning services has been exemplary in recent years.”
He portuense city council already works to “look for formulas for the next year 2024 to obtain authorization for this event to be held again in Playa Jardín». Faced with this setback, the Porto City Council will have to celebrate this year without live music the traditional bonfires of San Juan. “An ancestral custom” that, according to the Town Hall of the tourist city, “goes back to at least the 18th century, as he collected in his writings Alexander von Humboldt».
Text by Alexander Von Humboldt from June 23, 1799
“On the eve of San Juan we attended a country party in Mr. Little’s garden (…). At nightfall the slope of the volcano suddenly offered us an extraordinary appearance. The shepherds, faithful to a custom introduced without a doubt By the Spaniards, dating from the remotest antiquity, they had lit the bonfires for the festival of San Juan.These masses of scattered lights, those columns of smoke dispersed by the whirlwinds, contrasted with the gloomy greenery of the jungles that cover the sides of the peak. Shouts of joy could be heard from afar and seemed the only ones that interrupted the silence of nature in these solitary places”.
Next to the bonfires and the hut of the jets, Yes, it is planned that on Saturday the 24th from early in the morning the tradition of the bathing of the goats will be celebrated one more year at the port port dockorganized by the Association of Friends of the Bath of Goats in the Sea, chaired by Amílcar Fariña.
The program of events for San Juan officially begins this Wednesday, June 21, in the Institute of Hispanic Studies of the Canary Islandswith an oral storytelling show by Silvia Torrentswhich will star The Story of a Guanche Woman, starting at 7:00 p.m. On this day, the projection of the audiovisual will also be offered The Amazigh, Canarian and Continental womanin charge of Pablo Deluca, of the Imazighen Studies Center of the Canary Islands, with the collaboration of the Tamusni Cultural Association.
The celebration of the summer solstice in the tourist city is also characterized by a peculiar exhibition of ephemera art that consists of the enrame of the old public jets. Families, collectives and designers from the city will start working tomorrow, Thursday, on the frame of eight of these jets. the cuaco jet it will be the work of Amarca; Verart will take care of the cupid squirt; the designer Yaiza Trujillo will decorate the stream of Las Cabezas; Andres Hernandez, the one with the peach; he meknes street jet it will be embellished by the Friends of Ancient Traditions Association; the one from Las Maretas it will be a work by Juliana Serrano; the jet of the historic fishing pier will be in charge of Marcos Marrero and María Díaz, and the one from Punta Brava It will be the work of the Punta Brava El Veril Cultural Association.
“It seeks to safeguard environmental values”
The director of the Telesforo Bravo Foundation, Jaime Coello, applauded this Tuesday in Cope Tenerife the decision of Costas to suspend the musical show in Playa Jardín on the night of San Juan and recalled that “what is sought is to safeguard environmental values and that waste does not reach the sea. He added that “if we had another type of society we would not be collecting garbage after these celebrations”, although he understands “the anger and discomfort of the population”, but advocates “protecting our environment and the fauna and flora of the sandbanks”. Coello defends reducing the burning of materials of all kinds during the night of June 23 to 24, since “a large number of polluting substances burn.”
