Dejected restaurateur ‘gives up fight’ against St Julian’s big screen

Restaurant owners, fishermen and residents are against plans for the installation of two outdoor big screens for the World Cup, one at the former Tiguglio car park and the other at Xatt is-Sajjieda.

Despite urging the authorities to reconsider issuing the permits, the stakeholders feel there is nothing else they can do.

As early as March, on behalf of other restaurant owners, residents and fishermen, established restaurateur Peter Darmanin wrote to the Ministry for Tourism and the Ministry for Home Affairs.

“If the authorities want it to happen, it will happen. I will not keep on fighting tooth and nail for something I cannot stop,” Darmanin told MaltaToday, two days after raising the matter with the media.

“I don’t feel like arguing on subjects I clearly have no control on.”

The big screen set up at St Julian’s was also a controversy during the Euro 2012.

The setting up of big screens has become the norm during major international sporting events, but operators in the area complain that the restaurant area is turned into an extension of Paceville.

Operators of some of Malta’s top restaurants complained that the Euro 2012 live transmission created havoc and the usually tranquil Spinola Bay “served as a magnet for larger louts and thugs and drove the quality tourists and local patrons away from the area in the peak summer season”.