In an attempt to make life more bearable for the local population and ensure the basic functioning of the city during the upcoming peak tourist season, the Municipality of Kotor will launch a series of measures and significantly tighten communal order and discipline.
The measures that will be taken, as the mayor of the municipality, Vladimir Jokić, told "Vijesti", will hit the major economic interests of numerous individuals and companies that are now literally exploiting the city, which is why the first man of Kotor does not rule out violent reactions from the public and pressures that, as he says, will come from all sides to abandon such a plan.
He is determined, however, to insist until the end on the implementation of new measures that will significantly affect how the tourist season unfolds in Kotor, especially excursion tourism, which, as exact figures show, is what is already putting almost unbearable pressure on the city and its limited spatial and infrastructural capacities.
700.000 visitors came to Kotor last year in over 20 tourist buses
"We have a situation where many people are making a lot of money and are frantically draining our resources as a city and tourist destination and, in return, are not giving anything to Kotor. Well, if you are draining our resources, you will give Kotor something in return, or we will limit our resources in a way that you cannot drain them endlessly, as it suits you, and in the process destroy our lives, who are the residents of this city. I want to try this, although I don't know if I will be able to push it to the end. My assessment is that I will be dismissed sooner rather than later and that I will not succeed because many big interests will be affected by this, but I definitely want to try," says Jokić.
Managing our house
He points out that this set of measures "is not about managing a tourist destination, but about managing our house in which we live."
"Because the situation today is simply not good," emphasizes Jokić.
According to him, one of the first measures that will most likely come into effect between June 1 and 10 is to "limit the number of tourist buses with excursionists that come to Kotor every day to what this city can accommodate."
"This means that at the beginning of June, a special application will be put into use where tourist agencies, or excursion bus operators, will buy time slots of 5, 10 or 15 minutes at Benova to bring passengers and drop them off there, and after that the bus will get its own place in another parking lot, which it must pay separately. Conversely, a time slot for boarding passengers at Benova will also be purchased through the application, and no bus will be allowed to appear in the city with passengers after that time. Without buying time slots, tourist/excursion buses will not be able to disembark or pick up passengers in Kotor," said Jokić, adding that the only place where passengers will board and disembark from the bus will be at Benova, because it is the only location where tourists who come to visit the Old Town can disembark and board without having to cross the main street across the Kotor waterfront and thereby further congest the already congested traffic on the that main Kotor road.
Jokić points out that last year Kotor had 15,5 thousand paid excursion buses, and it is estimated that a total of just over 20 thousand buses with tourists came to the city, which means that around 700.000 visitors arrived in this way.
"If we were to allow those 700 thousand people to disembark and circulate along the main highway, that would be the end of our city. That's why we moved that "controlled collapse" to Benovo, behind the courthouse. Now we're going a step further and saying: Benovo can accommodate that many - buy time slots via the app, sign up and come, and you'll have those 15 minutes to disembark and pick up passengers at a specific time. If any bus shows up at Benovo unannounced or outside the purchased time, the penalty policy will be the most rigorous possible, I believe in the entire region," explains Jokić, adding that the fines will range up to 5.000 euros.
Parking price increase
He also announced that the regime already set for buses that pick up passengers from cruise ships at the port and take them on shore excursions and then return them to the ship will be strictly enforced. Trying to avoid paying the 50 euro cultural property use fee and the 60 euro port entry fee for each bus that transports cruise ship passengers, agencies and operators of these buses now often avoid entering the port area on the waterfront, but instead go to Benovo, and then the guide brings and takes passengers there on foot from the ship, which creates additional unnecessary congestion.
"This will no longer be the case from June 1st. If you are taking cruise ship passengers on excursions, you will have to enter the port by bus and pay all the fees. We will provide a discount for entrepreneurs registered in Kotor in such a way that they will pay a daily fee of 50 euros for the use of cultural assets regardless of the number of bus entries into the port, while everyone else will pay 50 euros for each bus entry into the port," Jokić pointed out.
In an attempt to discourage cars from arriving in the immediate vicinity of the Old Town, parking prices on the waterfront and in Benovo will be drastically increased, and Jokić announces that "a way will be found" to prevent the use of these parking lots by vehicles transporting tourists, such as small vans, tuk-tuks and other similar vehicles.
"In the parking pricing policy, we will have a special, more favorable price range for Kotor residents who have an obligation to park at the market, in the city, etc., in a way that does not destroy our standard and our way of life, while at the same time discouraging leaving cars in the city center," said Jokić, adding that special "spider" vehicles, "claws" and other means to prevent illegal parking will also be introduced, which Kotor currently does not have.
"We will try to introduce the maximum possible order in the arrival and departure of tourists, their behavior while they are in the city, but also in the behavior of our people who live from tourism. Because, if each of the tenants of the space in the Old Town takes only an additional square meter of space in public areas, there will be nothing left for normal life and functioning of the city," emphasizes Jokić, announcing a new public call for the lease of space in the underpass under the waterfront for stands of taxi boat providers and other similar services because, as he says, this is currently the only way to prevent the chaos that prevailed on the waterfront and at the entrance to the Port of Kotor until these facilities were redirected to the underpass.
Dirty because Denkerk
"The city services have already been ordered to mark every beach and every pier in the territory of the municipality of Kotor that has not been leased by the JP Morsko Dobro. We will inform citizens about this, make the map public, open a hotline for reporting possible violations, and tell citizens that no one can forbid or restrict access to the sea and swimming on these beaches and piers. If someone lives, for example, in Dobrota, they must have the right to swim in Dobrota and in every other location in our municipality," announced the mayor.
He points out that to someone coming from the outside, all of this he is announcing may seem like a regular job for city services, "but we are still aware that this is, in our circumstances, a kind of revolution because when we previously did the "Ponte" operation, guns were even drawn on our employees."
"I hope and believe that we can implement all of this. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn't even be getting into this. However, I don't rule out the possibility that at some point, huge interests and a huge influx of people who will be affected by these measures will start "grinding the system". If that happens, I will alert the citizens, and I know what I will personally do," concluded Jokić.
The municipality, he said, will ask the authorities in the state to completely ban the traffic of freight vehicles through Kotor during peak times in the summer months, and to introduce a ban on two-way bus traffic on the old road to Njeguše as soon as possible. It is asking the authorities in the Ministry of Maritime Affairs to be fully alert and decisive in dealing with all phenomena that threaten safety at sea, especially due to the extremely large number of small and fast vessels circulating in the Bay of Kotor.
"That's why Kotor currently, several times a day, when these speedboat excursion tours start, looks more like Dunkirk in 1940 than like itself. It's a real hell and it must be stopped, in which we have offered the Ministry of Maritime Affairs all our help and we will also make a fast dinghy of our Fire Department available to their inspections," the mayor emphasized, adding that the municipal services will be maximally engaged and determined in their intention to prevent the current arrogant behavior of some taxi-speedboat drivers who, among other things, keep canisters with dozens of liters of fuel in the city park where they then pour it into their vessels. He says that, modeled on military practice, the city services will receive daily orders on what must be completed that day, and field visits will be intensified.
"With all these measures, we will try to make life easier and more bearable for our people. Tourism must exist because we all eat bread from it. It is the branch we sit on and we must not cut it. But, at the same time, we must not allow that branch to have so many thorns that we cannot sit on it," Joki underlined, adding that he is ready for this fight, even if it costs him the seat of the mayor of the municipality.
"I was elected as the youngest mayor in the modern history of Kotor, and I will probably also be the longest-serving mayor in the modern history of Kotor. Therefore, I have no need to further affirm myself politically, nor do I have any kind of special political ambition beyond the city in which I live and to which I have tied my destiny. My first, foremost and main goal is to make this city the best possible place to live for its citizens, my family and myself. This is where everything begins and ends," said Jokić, adding that he believes that among his associates and employees in municipal services, who will bear a large part of the burden of implementing the upcoming tough regime, there is enough integrity and courage to cope with the inevitable pressures that, as he says, will certainly come from a large number of those who will be affected by the new regime of functioning of the city.
He emphasized that if any of the municipal leaders and officials are unable to respond to these challenges, "they will certainly no longer be part of the team of people I lead."
"I hope and believe that we can implement all of this. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn't even be getting into this. However, I don't rule out the possibility that at some point, huge interests and a huge influx of people who will be affected by these measures will start "grinding the system". If that happens, I will alert the citizens, and I know what I will personally do," concluded Jokić.
How normal we live
"There is the biblical one, when Jesus says: I have not come to bring you peace, but a sword! A sword to separate truth from lies. If we as a city do not have the human resources, if we do not have the personnel capacity to implement what we have announced, I, as mayor, will come out and tell the citizens the truth that we, as a city of 22.000 inhabitants from Jaz to Gahovo, do not have the strength to implement this, we do not have the capacity to cope with this kind of tourism, and at the same time live normally. After that statement, we can discuss what we will do next - will we let the water and the tide carry us or will we make radical cuts," Jokić pointed out, emphasizing that similar measures have already been taken by numerous similar destinations in the Mediterranean that, like Kotor, are facing the problem of "overtourism".
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