The promotion of the tourist mega-complex with casino and betting shops that the multinational Hard Rock wanted to build in Salou (Tarragona) appears in the specifications adopted by the government to get the PSC’s green light for Catalan households, but beyond that The project’s gestures have a tenuous credit rating. “I hope that hard rock advocates will back down,” Health Minister Manel Balcells admitted on Monday. The tourist park, planned in the countryside next to Port Aventura, will include buildings 75 meters high, similar to what the dark towers of La Caixa measure on Barcelona’s diagonal, as well as 30,000 square meters for betting shops and a casino, one of the largest in Europe . “It goes against what we defend from a health perspective,” Balcells said in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio. A month and a half ago, Esquerra voted in Parliament against a motion backed by the CUP and the House of Commons, which defended that projects like Salou’s Hard Rock endanger public health because they encourage gambling.
The skepticism about the Hard Rock expressed by the head of the Catalan executive’s health department is expressed in the debate that has led to the transfer of the International Casino Exhibition (ICE) to Barcelona, a fair that has been dedicated to gambling and betting for three decades is dedicated to took place in London. The event, which mobilizes 45,000 visitors and has an impact of 280 million euros, will be organized from 2025 to 2029 in Barcelona at the Gran Via de l’Hospitalet venue. “Anything that encourages gambling and increases the risk of gambling addiction is against public health,” stresses Balcells. Asked about the government’s commitment to the development of the Hard Rock complex in Salou, the consultant admitted that Pere Aragonès’ board had little interest in the project going ahead. “Gambling is a big problem, from a health point of view we can only position ourselves against it,” argues the consultant. “The Hard Rock theme was a stretch for the budgets,” added Balcells.
In 2017, when he was Economy Minister and Vice-President of the Generalitat, Oriol Junqueras defended that the Hard Rock project was sustainable and economically realistic, and also presented it as “humanely and environmentally sustainable”. The President of the ERC then assured that the Leisure mega-complex originally known as BCN World will be “an extremely varied project” with the ability “to complement the tourist offer in the Tarragona area”.
On paper, the North American Hard Rock Entertainment World wanted to invest around 700 million euros in a project that envisaged the construction of a large tourist complex between Salou and Vila-seca for gambling and betting, as well as two large 63,000 square meter hotels. and a commercial area of 15,000 square meters. Hard Rock announced it would hire 2,176 people from the casino’s opening and in its first five years of operation. The company said its plan could involve an investment of up to €2,000 million.
Despite the awesomeness of the numbers, the project never managed to shake off the clouds of uncertainty and doubt. The government granted the license to operate the casino in 2018, which was heralded as an important procedure to ensure the viability of the plan. But the file remained muddy. In 2020, the government tried to provide guarantees to the project developer, accepting payment of 120 million euros for the land on which the hotel mega-complex would be built. The farms attached to Port Aventura Park are owned by Criteria, La Caixa’s investment holding company, and the Catalan Land Institute (Incasol) took over the bill to later pass it on to the multinational Hard Rock.
Also in 2020, the Supreme Court of Catalonia (TSJC) issued a ruling that partially annulled the town plan (PDU) of the land on which the complex was to be developed. The judgment was based on the chemical risk posed by the proximity to the Tarragona petrochemical area. The duly revised new urban development plan is said to be ready despite opposition from environmental organizations in the Tarragona region. At the beginning of the summer, they managed to mobilize around 4,000 people to demonstrate against the leisure mega-complex.
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The environmental impact and commitment to a gambling-related business model have fueled the Hard Rock controversy, making the project a throwing weapon for political parties.
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