Yo Latino assails OBO motive in parking space requirement

The management of the Lahug-based Yo Latino Bar and Restaurant has questioned the purpose of the city's Office of the Building Official in pressuring the business over the insufficiency of parking space in the establishment.

Rodney Sebua, operations supervisor of Yo Latino, told the OBO that the restaurant is only a tenant of the 230-square meter lot that is owned by Dolores Diez of DEN Development Corporation, and thus should not be questioned about parking spaces.

The Yo Latino and the DEN Development has a five-year contract of lease at P40,000 monthly, and Sebua said that the restaurant before starting its operations have complied with the business requirements of the city, such as mayor's permit and parking space availability.

Sebua said the trouble started when DEN's Development, the landlord and owner of the leased building, constructed two more buildings in the compound right at the parking area formerly reserved for Yo Latino's patrons.

Last December 28, building official Antonio Sanchez sent the restaurant management a notice of closure with an order to submit a new sketch plan of the parking slots for its customers because the DEN's Development would construct a building at the parking lot for Yo Latino.

"It appears that on the basis of (DEN's) plan submitted, you have no more parking spaces," Sanchez wrote Yo Latino.

OBO head Josefa Ylanan however had a different tone in her separate statement. "The mayor is still waiting for the final report. He intends to close if there are violations as to parking space," she said.

The city notified Yo Latino and DEN's Development to submit their respective explanations within seven days about parking spaces and building violations.

Ylanan wanted the two entities to explain on the matter, otherwise the OBO will recommend to the mayor the closure of the restaurant. "I saw the contract of Yo Latino and the owner, it's now an internal problem. What we are waiting for is their explanations," she said.

Sebua complained: "This was a shock. Instead of questioning DEN's Development for constructing without building permit and for looking into the issue only now when the structure is practically complete, we are being made a fall guy. We are being made to look like the villain."

Sebua said the issue on parking space should not include Yo Latino because the OBO has not acted yet on its earlier complaint to the agency against the construction of a new building by DEN's Development.

He said Yo Latino has incurred losses already due to the construction of new buildings at the parking space.

Yo Latino president Nixon Dizon, for his part, asked Diez to clarify with OBO about its notice so that the issue will be resolved. "Hopefully, the letter from the OBO was only mistaken, and things can be worked out," he said.

Dizon feared that the restaurant would be closed, as stated in the OBO notice, just because of building code violation. "If we are closed by OBO, this would be disastrous, and will lose the many millions in investment in the space we are leasing from you," Dizon told Diez. - Garry B. Lao