Dear Samir, I have stayed at Cidade De Goa and we had a 2nd honeymoon at that place, so I was shocked at first when I read your mail and then the blog.
But, after some deeper thinking I felt that I should express my true feeling. Now, I believe that this petition is an utter sham. And I would request you to actually visit the place and then talk about it rather than mail this based on this blog, a person who is jobless enough to write crap. The worst part about democracy and freedom of speech is that it popularizing something small can cause stupid issues to be magnified in an obscene manner. Denial of public access to beach: You should see the beach, it is an extremely small beach. I doubt that the public lost much if they lost something. Don't take my word for it visit the place(visiting does not require you to pay to the hotel) and then you will understand. And Illegal construction: This was the funniest bit, because all they have done is placed some rocks and built a small wall at each side to block access. And I know of several several other such "encroachments" and private beaches in Goa, but no only cidade de goa must be boycotted, umm probably because only they can be hurt, hey it's no fun to punish the small time fisherman, he is just trying to feed his family. Environmental Destruction: Get real!!! The hotel actually takes pains to maintain, enforce and keep the beach clean as they have done for over 20+ years! Because this is a private beach and their livelihood depend on it, they enforce rules, ask guests to follow norms, clean up heavily after beach parties. They have a vested commercial interest in cleaning their own beach. And you know what, after all this maintenance & cleaning of their private beach, they are still cheaper than other 5 star hotels without beaches, something i learned while trying to economize my own trip. Want to see actual environmental destruction of a beach, visit Baga Beach, the public beach and you will observe it. I guess the public is really awesome at maintaining cleanliness! <extreme sarcasm>. After all, the small-time boat operators at the beach, the poor guys only want to feed their kids. And the public that leaves the beach dirty after a party, heck that is why tourists come -- can't expect the corrupt government to clean it now can you. But no, Cidade De Goa, yes, they are the bad guys, they are big commercial enterprise, they deny access to a beach and they keep it nice and clean (relatively to other goan beaches). I am sorry for my sarcastic tone and sentimental outburst. But after reading all the documents, I agree with the court, (LONG, SKIP to next para if you want) , "The public trust doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain resources like air, sea, waters and the forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership. These resources are a gift of nature, therefore, they should be freely available to everyone irrespective of one's status in life. This doctrine puts an implicit embargo on the right of the State to transfer public properties to private party if such transfer affects public interest." EXCEPT, the public in question is about 100 local citizens (less than the number of hotel's employees, who earn their living from the hotel) and the beach is less than 500m in size --- ideal for a private hotel beach --- and devastating small for public. But then the judge didn't go to Cidade De Goa either, so I truly cannot blame him. Lastly, I also wont' go to Cidade De Goa now, because I feel that a good clean beach it had is now destroyed. <sarcasm> SAVE THE PUBLIC!!! BRAVO, WELL DONE !!! ENCORE !!! We stopped those b******s at Cidade De Goa from making profits. And when the hotel lays off staff, well those workers just deserved for working for that commercial enterprise. </sarcasm> George Orwell --- "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" (referring to the Pigs in Animal Farm) Bye Mohit On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 7:01 PM, Samir Kelekar <samir_kele...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > http://boycotthotelcidadedegoa.blogspot.com > > Hi All: > Check this blog. Goa has become 'Andher Nagari chowpat raja, taka ser > bhaji, taka ser khaja". > > Please do not patronize Cidade de Goa, a hotel that is built on grossly > voiolating Supreme court guidelines. Also, pass this message to tourists > worldwide. > > regards, > Samir > ________________________________ > From kitchen basics to easy recipes - join the Group from Kraft Foods > Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)