“Ridiculous,” says Ivo. He successfully contested the closure and fine. But that’s not the end of the matter. According to the municipality, the Harbor Spa never applied for the correct permit to start a business in the first place. Whether that is a brothel or a sauna.
According to Ivo, this was not necessary at all: the municipality wrote to him three years ago, before his spa opened, that ‘no permit is required to operate a sauna or hot tub’. NH has seen that letter. But according to the municipality, that letter did not come from the correct department and Ivo should have still applied for a permit. Much to the frustration of the entrepreneur.
Alderman Sander Smeets also stood his ground in council meetings in recent months: a zoning plan cannot simply be changed. No exceptions possible. He’s coming back to that now.
Relieved and happy
According to the municipality’s own legal advisors, Ivo is indeed in a strong position should a lawsuit arise. “We have unintentionally raised wrong expectations and the entrepreneur may not be blamed for starting to operate a private sauna,” states the message that the mayor and aldermen wrote yesterday.
Now the Harbor Spa may continue to exist, if Ivo still applies for a permit for his sauna. “This is what I was hoping for,” says the sauna operator, relieved and happy. “Such a permit application also costs money, but that is much better than closing, of course.”