AWP row in Spain’s Valencia rumbles on

The hospitality industry in the Spanish province of Valencia is “practically dead,” said local gaming machine distributor Fidel Molina of Comatel in a radio interview.

The local authorities in Valencia have clamped down on AWP machines in local bars to the degree that many have closed their doors and there have been demonstrations in the streets. Molina is heading an SOS Hostelería campaign.

But he told the radio station ES Radio Valencia’s Es la Mañana programme that there was a total lack of institutional dialogue with the authorities since the damaging rules were introduced in June.

Molina now plans to meet the Ombudsman in Madrid to complain about the legality of the law changes that have brought about the removal of thousands of machines in Valencia with disastrous consequences for the bars.

He told the radio station that the Valencian government had offered “no communication on their part; we continue to suffer the same indifference that we have had from the beginning.”

Molina said that around 35,000 establishments were involved in the crisis with 190,000 jobs.