“It is easy criticism, the game is present in many areas. In Barcelona there are days when there are five cruise ships docked with their casinos, but when we talk about gambling in Catalonia we always point to the Hard Rock”, laments Pere Segura (Junts), mayor of Vila-seca.
With the urban processing of the Hard Rock tourist macro-complex on the Costa Daurada stuck in the offices of the Generalitat since autumn 2022, criticism from within the Government itself for including a large casino and wishing that the American promoters would end up backing down have ignited the wick. One more time.
Businessmen in the tourism sector on the Costa Daurada, among those most interested in making it a reality, have been fatally affected by the statements by the Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, openly criticizing the project: "I am absolutely against there being the Hard Rock casino. I hope that the promoters will back down, ”he said on Catalunya Ràdio.
“It is being very naive.... The company will not back down, it will wait for the resolution of the Generalitat. If I had the planning license, I would start the works”, Segura replies.
The mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, who governs the city together with the PSC and has just signed an agreement with the ERC, has long criticized the actions of the Government. “I regret the attitude of the minister, who apparently speaks on behalf of the Government. We are facing a repeated failure for a long time of the deadlines for approval. We ask the Generalitat to clarify this situation, to definitively approve the urban master plan; we cannot delay the project any longer, the investors will eventually get tired”.
The urban master plan referred to by the mayor of Salou is still awaiting approval by the Generalitat, after suffering endless setbacks and setbacks, judicial and administrative. The last one, in October 2022, when an unfavorable report was made public by Acció Climàtica technicians, demanding modifications to give the green light.
Since then, silence, in a waiting pattern that was first linked to the municipal elections in May and then to the general ones in July. "It has always been used in political warfare," laments Segura.
The Government ended up accepting the definitive impulse of the tourist complex as a condition imposed by the PSC to give its support to the budgets of the Generalitat. Esquerra promised to unravel the approval of urban planning in the first half of the year. The pact specified the commitment to complete all the procedures so that the works begin in 2024.
With the project asleep in the drawers, at least apparently, the role of the Minister of Health has generated more indignation. “We are fed up with being put sticks in the wheels. Hard Rock does not advance. Many promises and some, few, good words, but only in private meetings; but neither dates nor strong public declarations of support for a capital project for the Costa Daurada. Yes, it is as important as Port Aventura World is”, says Berta Cabré, president of the Business Federation of Hospitality and Tourism of the province of Tarragona.
However, the new urban master plan (PDU) that must unravel the Hard Rock investment will not go to the approval of the Urban Planning Commission of the Generalitat before October, when the first session of the organization is scheduled. Autumn should be key to clarify once and for all if it goes ahead or ends up being discarded. "We are laughing, we have been waiting for months, years, for reports that have not yet arrived," criticizes the mayor of Vila-seca.
Àngel Xifré (ERC), the delegate of the Generalitat in Tarragona, assures that everything is continuing: “The position of the Government has not changed, the master plan continues to be processed. Everything goes on. Hard Rock is a recreational and tourist complex that will have hotels, shops, shows, concerts... The casino will be a part of the center”.
