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Cuba rebuts rumors Havana's privately-owned eateries to be shut down

Xinhua, October 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Cuba's government on Thursday refuted rumors that Havana's privately-owned restaurants, or "paladares," were to be shut down.

The rumors began circulating following a government push to regulate the more than 500 paladares that operate in the capital.

"It is not the government's intention to close these businesses. On the contrary, we want them to succeed, but we can't allow disorderliness," Isabel Hamze Ruiz, vice president of Havana's Provincial Administrative Council (CAP), told state-run daily Granma.

In September, the CAP temporarily suspended granting new licenses for private restaurant operators, with an eye to regulating the growing sector, the daily said.

At the same time, officials met with 129 of some 135 paladar owners to discuss "problems affecting the service," Hamze said, citing money laundering and the violation of labor laws, the sale and use of drugs, prostitution, the sale of contraband, unregulated operating hours and noise pollution.

The "investment of capital of questionable origin -- money laundering -- hiring workers without a license or contracts, using the restaurants as nightclubs or discos, and tax evasion" were all concerns, she said.

The owners were notified that site inspections would follow, and these have led to fines for several establishments, said Hamze.

However, of the 32 businesses inspected so far, only one is being closed "for violating the scope of the license it was granted," she added.

The restaurants offer an important source of employment in Cuba, said Hamze, and "we appreciate the services our self-employed workers (business owners) provide. Today they are irreplaceable and we want to preserve them, to have them be successful, but all in an orderly way."

Paladares and cafes have mushroomed since the government began in 2011 to encourage the opening up of small privately-owned businesses, to compensate for the loss of about one million jobs as the state began to trim the bloated public sector. Endite