“Deathtrap” restaurant ignored Fire Department warnings
The failure of authorities to enforce orders which had led to the imposition of fines totaling $140,000 and the willful ignoring of warnings from the Fire Department led to the death of Edie Del Cid in the Salvaje restaurant in Casa Lola in Casco Viejo on Sunday, May 23.
Aníbal Del Cid described the staircase of the restaurant from which his brother fell as a “deathtrap”.
Casa Lola was fined $100,000 for representing “a serious danger” to people, but those responsible have not paid the fine imposed by the then National Directorate of Historical Heritage, today Cultural Heritage.
The director of Cultural Heritage, Katti Osorio, revealed that the owners of Casa Lola have not paid off the debt, which is why an administrative process for the execution of the fine was opened
Osorio said that since March 2019 the municipal authorities have been asked to cancel the operation notices of the businesses that operate in that property, but she has not received a response.
La Prensa reported that an operation notice was issued to the Salvaje restaurant in June 2018, when the firefighters warned of the risks and irregularities in the construction.
As it does not have an occupancy permit, the Casa Lola property, where it operates a 29-room hotel and two restaurants, one of them, Salvaje, is lit by a power plant that exploded in August 2019.
The director of the Fire Department, Colonel Abdiel Solís, confirmed that the businesses that operate in Casa Lola do not have an occupancy permit. “Casa Lola and the Salvaje restaurant were fined $10,00 each in 2018, but the owners of the restaurant were never notified, now a person loses his life due to the negligence of those who handle that but the [Metropolitan] prosecutor’s office will investigate”.
Solís said that a month ago he asked the authorities to authorize by the Official Gazette that firefighters can close businesses with irregularities.
A report from firefighters on May 25, 2018, warned that the stairs of the building do not have handrails or anti-slip tape; that there are no fire extinguishers or signs or fire detection systems; and that the sprinklers are painted, among other breaches of the security system.
Since 2018 no inspections have been carried out on the work, confirmed the National Directorate of Security, Prevention and Investigation of Fires of the firefighters.
The director of Works and Constructions of the capital’s Mayor’s Office, Antonio Docabo, said that since 2014, the Salvaje restaurant has kept four processes open. In one of them, he said, he was ordered to demolish what was built and suspend the renovations.
He warned that because the owners of the restaurant “have not legalized the work, the municipal entity will take corrective measures in order to enforce urban regulations.”
The connections
In November 2015, Osorio said, Casa Lola was fined $150,000 for building without a permit. The payment was made by N&C Capital Corp.
In N&C Capital Corp., Alessandro Cavallera appears as vice president, who is an underwriter, secretary, and director at Casa Lola, as well as manager of the Salvaje restaurant.
Until May 2020, Cavallera was secretary at Intermed Consulting Panama, SA, a company linked to Intercontinental de Medicamentos, SA in Mexico, which was awarded the disputed contract for $168 million in the Social Security Fund (CSS).
Seven days before the contract was awarded, in March 2020, Cavallera -on behalf of N&C Capital Corp.- delivered a donation of supplies to Enrique Lau, director of the CSS.
