Hoa Nguyen can’t get his happiness, he can continue to sell spring rolls in Elim. The municipality of Hoogeveen gives him permission to put his stall at the Plus in the village.
“I am very happy with this,” says Nguyen. “We received the letter from the municipality with the confirmation. Recently it was exciting. You have been in doubt all the time and in uncertainty. Now I feel happy and relieved.”
The Nguyen permit ended at the end of last year. To the sorrow of the entrepreneur and the village, the permit could not be extended, on which he left with his car to Nieuwlande.
“I didn’t have a nice Christmas, I cried a lot, screamed a lot,” said Nguyen in December. Villagers and regular customers jumped in the breach for their ‘Vietnamese elimite’. With success, because the municipality has announced Nguyen that it will remain welcome in Elim.
“The tolerance of a location does justice to the wishes of the population,” the municipality writes in the decision.
The municipality talks about a ‘practical solution’ for a paper problem. The location in Elim disappeared on paper. Hoogeveen is working on new rules for locations such as those in Elim, but that policy will only be finished later this spring.
Until then, there would be no options for a mobile snack car in Elim. “Undesirable”, the municipality also concludes. And so for Nguyen an exception is made until the new policy is there.
Jolanda Oosterhof-Kok is a regular customer at Nguyen, as a VVD member she raised his situation at the municipality of Hoogeveen. “It’s nice to see that a solution has been done on a solution. I am happy with it,” she says.
Oosterhof-Kok hopes that these kinds of situations can be prevented in the future. “We are working on new policies for locations, it would be nice if there was the opportunity to get a permit for ten years, just like in De Wolden.”