Josà © Luis Cabeza. Seville, 1950. The hotel business is mortally wounded by the coronavirus crisis. This businessman tries to fight it with ingenuity and selling his mythical serranitos for 400 pesetas, the price they had in 1983, when he opened his first store.
In the midst of the pandemic, you sell serranitos, the typical Seville sandwich made of loin, ham, tomato and green pepper, for 2.4 euros.
Yes, it occurred to my son to find a price that would be attractive to the public with our flagship product. We are selling below cost. Its price before was 5.50 euros. Our goal is to attract the largest possible audience and thus be able to keep jobs.
How many employees worked at your premises before the coronavirus crisis?
We had 40 workers in the three Mesones del Serranito in Seville and now there are twelve. In the time that we have been closed, they have had collection problems with the SEPE (State Public Employment Service). They are receiving 50% of the contribution base and a family cannot move forward with that income. For this reason, we have been obliged to reopen our establishments to rescue the maximum number of employees. We open knowing that we will hardly generate income.
How is the clientele behaving?
The problem is that right now, with the restrictions to stop the Covid and the perimeter closure of the city, the people of the towns cannot travel to Seville. In addition, the Sevillian of the neighborhoods does not come to the center and tourism does not exist. So the hospitality coronavirus crisis is a tragedy, I swear to you on my children.
Surely they have noticed in the box the decrease in tourism.
The center of Seville is full of tourist apartments, with some 30,000 beds. There has been an exodus of people who lived in the center to the towns or the neighborhoods because the rent is more affordable. With the pandemic, there is no tourism and the neighbors who used to live here are gone. The center is dead.
How are you experiencing the new restrictions on hours for the hotel business?
I am indignant. Now, the bars and the inn close at six in the afternoon, but the food chains are open until ten. Young people go to a supermarket and buy the bottles and then meet in a flat, where they are all rebuilt. If we do not comply with the rules, let them put fines on those who break the law. The Administration has abandoned us to the hotel industry and many other sectors. Politicians raise their salaries, but the country is sinking and people are going to ask Caritas.
The aid from the central government and the Junta de AndalucÃa has not finished arriving.
They do not arrive. But there are people who have not collected ERTE! Although they have forced us to close, the rents of the premises are still paid and there is no help for the hospitality sector.
With the soaring infections of coronavirus, do you think it reasonable to close the hospitality establishments?
Everything has its measure. There are hoteliers of all kinds. To those who meet the norm, it is not that you have to reward them, but neither do you screw us. To all, what hurts the most is the pocket, so who does not comply, fines.
How long can he last?
All you can. The ICO loans that we have had to ask for have been through mortgaging our private house and another property as a guarantee of payment, in case we cannot afford that loan. In short, we must expose our heritage to try to get out of this madness.
The Pedro Sánchez government said that we were going to emerge stronger from this crisis.
The one who came out the strongest was Pedro Sánchez and his team; the Spanish, no. I am ashamed of all the politicians we have. Those fights in Congress that looks like a chicken coop! But I, to my politics, which is Serranito, serranito and more serranito!
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