Segovia (EFE).- The restaurant La Olma de Pedraza, in the Segovian town of Pedraza, offers free tap water to its customers, thus complying with the Law on Waste and Contaminated Soils for a Circular Economy, but charges 4.5 per serve it, a way of circumventing this rule that has earned him a complaint by FACUA Castilla y León.
“We price our work, like anyone else in this country, unless it is an NGO… we, for the moment, are a company,” the owner of the establishment, Sergio Blázquez, explained this Thursday in statements to Efe.
The innkeeper has specified that in his dining room “water is free”: “In fact, you go to the bathroom and water is not charged. The water in the restaurant is free. Now, we, as a service company, charge for our work”, he explained.
For Blázquez, who has run the restaurant since 2005 although the establishment has been open since 1993, “everything that is served must be charged for”, in the same way that all his employees receive their payroll at the beginning of the month.
FACUA: The restaurant owner makes a “torticous interpretation” of the law to not serve free tap water
The organization in defense of consumer rights FACUA Castilla y León, which has denounced the establishment before the Territorial Service for Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Junta de Castilla y León, does not see it in the same way, as it has been published in a communicated the association this Thursday.
In his opinion, this restaurant makes a “torticous interpretation” of Law 7/2022, of April 8, on waste and contaminated soil for a circular economy.
This standard establishes that “in establishments in the hotel and restaurant sector, consumers, clients or users of their services must always be offered the possibility of consuming unpackaged water free of charge and complementary to the offer of the same establishment.” ».
What La Olma de Pedraza does is offer free tap water but charge the customer 4.50 euros for serving it in a glass, as can be read in the menu, where among different items to be charged, there is “The water service from the tap (per person), we give you the water as a gift».
Paying this price, as explained by the innkeeper, gives the right to “a clean glass, freshly washed, served by a waiter, and then that glass is cleaned again and recycled again”, and includes expenses such as the use of the dishwasher or the Social Security of employees: “What a business entails”, sums up the owner.