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Are you setting up a tent on Achziv Beach? Pay NIS 500 "garbage tax" for each night

Recently, the Nahariya municipality began demanding a "garbage removal tax" for every night that people sleep in a tent set up for them on Achziv Beach. The owners of the encampments claim that it is protection, and those who do not pay encounter inspectors who destroy the encampment and hand out fines. Municipality: "This is a fee for garbage removal and public order"

• Nahariya
• Beaches
• encampment

Ziv Reinstein

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(In the video: Achziv Islands and the amazing coastline)

The phenomenon of encampments that are set up on some of the beaches in the country is familiar to all of us, there are also those who are assisted by paid professional builders, who provide a tent equipped with seating areas, a refrigerator, toilets and everything you need for a few nights on the beach.

But for more than a week now, the Nahariya municipality has begun charging hundreds of shekels per night for vacationers in tents on the most beautiful beach in Israel - Achziv Beach - which is embodied as a kind of "tax" for garbage removal, which micromanages the stay on the beach by thousands of shekels. "They come with inspectors and cops, just like a collection company, and give you a receipt," he told Walla! Moshe (pseudonym) owns a tent business.

From testimonies that reached Walla! Tourism, the municipality's collection process seems to have started about a week and a half ago, when inspectors accompanied by police arrived at the 1.5 km stretch of beach between Banana Beach in Achziv and Nahariya, where tents are allowed, and began asking vacationers to pay NIS 500 tax per night they stay. On the beach. "I understood from people who work on the beach regularly that the municipality is starting to bother," said Roni (pseudonym), another business owner for setting up tents and cheap, in a call to Walla! Tourism, and said that we had to pay to the municipality. "

Moses says that the phenomenon has begun just in the last days." this is something new, they take a fee for garbage disposal and use of the ground, "he says." suddenly like that, all at once, they demanded from encampment to 500 shekels a night of 24 hours. They went into every tent and whoever did not pay, they knocked him a report of 730 shekels. My colleague had a tent dismantled and ropes cut and confiscated. "I pay because I have customers and I promised them a price before this directive, but the municipality does not let us work." , He adds.

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"This is something new. They are taking a garbage collection and land use fee." A tent on Achziv beach

Receipt for payment of NIS 400 per night for garbage removal, paid for by one of the encampment owners

"The inspectors come at night, without any warning"

The phenomenon of setting up encampments is not new in the coastal landscape. With quite a few of the holidays and vacations that take place from spring and north to autumn, you will find many cheap tents, or in the more popular name "Kantas", which Israelis rent on the shores of Neve Yam in Atlit, Maayan Zvi and Hof Carmel and Achziv. In Israel, there is no law prohibiting the construction of tents, but there is a bylaw for regulating beaches that allows municipalities and regional councils to enforce public order, garbage removal and more.

Municipalities and regional councils responsible for coastal enforcement often send inspectors to impose fines on business encampments, such as those set up by event companies or small businesses that take care of setting up and dismantling the encampment after a few days. According to some of the business owners, the inspectors arrive at night, without any prior notice, and attack the vacationers and ask to give them and the business owner (who is not in the area) a fine because he did not arrange the "garbage removal payment" in advance.

Danny (pseudonym) also spoke about the aggressive conduct of inspectors from the Nahariya municipality, which he says also characterizes the conduct on the shores of other tents, such as Neve Yam and Hof Carmel. "A week ago I had a family on the beach in Achziv," says Danny, "and the inspectors came to the encampment at 21:00, asked who set up the encampment for them and wrote me a report and sent it to me by mail. Once there is a law that says I will not build an encampment, but there is no law at the moment and they We are not touching people's cheap private goods, but only commercial ones. "

According to him, he provides a service to the Israeli public. "Some people come with a wheelchair or do not have the ability to set up a tent, and I provide a service like any other business owner," he says, adding that the amount the municipality is asking for is unrealistic and the Interior Ministry gives the municipality a garbage amount, "so why collect such sums from us? "

According to Moshe, "In the past, the municipality wanted us to clean a toilet cubicle for every tent, and we did that. Every time it has new requirements that we meet, the standards and bring in people to clean, and in the end also demand money from us for garbage removal."

"Inspectors play in people's livelihoods." A tent in Achziv

"Protection for everything"

It should be noted that in June this year, headed by Supreme Court President Dan Ester animals petition filed by commercial companies setting up encampments on the beach cease enforcement against them, and permanent political activity enforceable means maintaining public beaches. Consequently, the petitioners withdrew their petition.

However, it seems that the municipality of Nahariya Trying to regulate the construction of encampments in the area by paying under the heading of "tolls, garbage removal and public order", which some of those quoted in the article say "it is protection for everything." The municipality also issued a letter of commitment to set up an encampment in the area. "

In the opinion of Mira Lilach, one of whom is involved in setting up tents and is not afraid to identify herself by name, the inspectors play hard at people's livelihoods." We work hard in the heat of. "Summer, in the scorching sun and you do not want them to ruin your event," she says, "so you say 'come on, we'll pay them' (to the inspectors - ZR)." According to her, the director of the municipal supervision and business licensing department, Dudu Elhiani, "wants to run Muscles and say I'm here, and every day at 6 in the morning there are messages in the WhatsApp group of the inspectors and ours That they are going to give us fines, "adds Mira. Mr. Elhiani declined to comment on the allegations in the article.

Mira adds that the land allocated at sea belongs to the Israel Lands Administration and not to the municipality, and she was only given permission to enforce and monitor and does so through a regular series of payments. "This beach has never been cleaned before, it was polluted and no child would come to Nahariya and the municipality's supervision department decided to disrupt this move, where people come and businesses flourish around after the corona closure," she says.

Letter of commitment between the municipality and the owners of the encampments who undertake to pay NIS 500 per night

Inspectors in police uniform dismantled the encampment

"The manager fired us this year because of the corona and the difficulty of making a living," says Mira, "and people enjoyed, but the municipality gave us reports. All this bullying to go into people's tents at 20:00 in the evening and dismantle their tents because they did not pay, is wrong."

According to her, on the evening of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week, five inspectors in police uniform entered at about 20:00 all the encampments. "They also went into my encampment where there were girls who got stressed. One of them took the ID of one of the children and gave him a report."

According to the encampment owners, once there is a tax payment, the one who will be harmed is the people who will have to pay more. Mati (pseudonym), is one of the people who hired to set up a tent with his family and friends for the coming weekend. He also does not understand the "tax" that will cost him and his friends the stay on the beach. "It's annoying that I have to pay a garbage removal tax, while we pay taxes and take care of the ecological services and bins that the encampment founder brings, so that we don't have to defecate in the field," he says. "There are those who take care of the garbage removal on our part and we pay him for it."

"Once there is a tax payment, the one who will be harmed is the people who will have to pay more"

Nahariya Municipality: "The amount was reduced to NIS 300 as a garbage collection fee"

The Nahariya Municipality responded: "For the first time, a series was held in the Nahariya coastal strip along the undeclared beaches, which included: traffic arrangements, parking, restrictions on use - caravans, family-private tents and business tents. Collecting money from customers for their activities, produces large amounts of waste, which the municipal staff directs to landfill. In addition, inspection teams combined with integrated policing, help maintain public order and enforce municipal bylaws. Initially set a sum of 500 shekels per day, but after meeting with representatives "The owners of the business tents have lowered the price to NIS 400 and in light of another request for NIS 300 as a fee for garbage removal services and public order, out of a desire to keep the city's beaches clean. We emphasize that families who set up a private tent do not pay money."

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