- Greeks are tired of businesses hogging public beaches with their overpriced lounge chairs.
- Bars and restaurants on Paros charge between $70 to $130 to rent a pair of beach chairs.
Most reasonable people wouldn't pay $75 to rent a pair of beach chairs on a public beach.
Neither would Greeks, who are fed up with beachfront businesses hogging the sand on Paros island with their overpriced beach chairs, according to The New York Times. Businesses have dotted the beaches with lounge chairs facing the water, charging up to 120 euros, or $130, for VIP spots.
"In some cases they covered 100 percent of the beach," Nicolas Stephanou, a 70-year-old local, told the Times. "We feel we're being pushed off the island."
In response, discontented Greeks have launched a "beach towel movement" to protest the lack of free space, occupying public beaches holding signs that read "Reclaim our beaches," the Times reported.
While the beaches are public, local restaurants, bars, and hotels are allowed to lease portions of the beach. While there are limits on how much of the sandy space the business can lease, locals told the Times the businesses are expanding their space illegally. They proved their point with drone footage comparing the leased plots of the beach to the actual amount of space businesses were taking up.
"There were massive discrepancies," Stephanou told the Times. Though businesses had leased 7,186 square meters last year, they took up 18,800 square meters of beach space, the Times reported.
Authorities have conducted some sweeps and even made a few arrests of businessmen in the area, but the beach loungers often reappear shortly after businesses remove them, according to the Times.
"Even five years ago, I could go to any beach and just go and enjoy nature, enjoy the sand, enjoy the water, the silence," Ronit Nesher, who permanently relocated to Paros several years ago, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Now it's packed with lounges and umbrellas and there is not even a space to put a towel or chair or just to come and sit on the sand."
Last week, hundreds of locals staged a sit-in on the beach to emphasize their point, the outlet reported.
"Is that what you guys want to turn Paros in to? With no considerations of the locals and of nature?"