7 News Belize

Yohnny Tired of NICH, But Not Tired of Tires
posted (February 5, 2016)
And while Yohnny Rosado didn't go inside the Tourism Village, he has gone back inside his tire shop.

As we told you last week Tuesday, the city council closed down his "Econo Tire Shop." Rosado alleged that there was a malicious intent behind it all. He concedes that he doesn't have a full trade license but he showed us a receipt which demonstrates he has paid a down payment towards his trade license. Still, for the past 8 months that he had been operating he received no hassle from the city council. But a few days after he got back up on the media, his business was closed down.

Two days later his tire shop opened back for business. So how did that happen? Here is how Rosado explained it.

Yohnny Rosado - Econo Tires Shop
"Very hard to believe, but actually my son was the one that they close on his face and he was the one that went in there because I was doing another job. He was the one that went in there to find out what's going to happen with the business, if it going to remain closed until we the actual certificate and they told him go right ahead, open the business and we will deal you all later on."

Emanuel Pech
"There was no special fine that you had to pay?"

Yohnny Rosado - Econo Tires Shop
"They are charging us the regular trade license fee and the months that we were open without the license. So it see that normal. They charged me like $900 for operating without the certificate and $300 for the certificate. I don't care what I have to pay. We need to open a business. We need to do business for us to live a comfortable life. So I don't really care about the payments. I have shown to you, I have shown to the City Council - I'm paying for this building $48,000 per year. I don't know if there is any other building that I am paying the amount of money that I am paying right now."

Emanuel Pech
"It is like two days after they told you close down or else you can't open back up?"

Yohnny Rosado - Econo Tires Shop
"I'm saying to the country of Belize that whenever you have a real problem and you know your rights, you should depend on the media. Because the media is the only government we have right now to protect when you are right. Because if the media did not come here, I don't believe my place would be open up to now. Because the City Council realized that they were wrong. You don't go and close people business for you to make money so we can pay them. Because we work for the government. All the profits that we make is for the government. So they realize they were doing something wrong. So I must thank the media houses of this country. Thanks to the power of the media we have business opened back."

As you can recall, last week ROSADO told us that the situation caught him off guard because they never issued a single warning letter. We called the public relations officer at the city council Kenny Morgan who told us that ROSADO'S business was in noncompliance with their terms of agreement. He affirmed that closing down businesses for no reason at all is not a practice they employ.

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