Classed as a 4-star resort for all ages, the Cacao Beach Resort Spa and Casino is a 30 minute drive from the airport and within walking distance of the picturesque town of Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic. With the US dollar being common currency along with the Dominican peso, the country is popular with vacationers from the US and Canada as well as Europe. Last weekend visitors to the Cacao Beach hotel found their holidays interrupted by the arrival of soldiers.

According to the newspaper El Nacional and hotel owner Pasqual Remigio Valenzuela, the military was occupying the hotel after accompanying an alleged bailiff and forcibly evicting dozens of foreign tourists. Over 100 employees are also said to have been removed and the place vandalised. Safety deposit boxes were apparently broken open and furnishings ripped out and thrown into the street.

The dispute seems to have arisen over the payment of monthly instalments to an Italian stakeholder in the hotel, which Valenzuela claims to have paid. He has now filed a complaint with the authorities and requested the intervention of the Tourism Secretary. Valenzuela says that he bought Leugi Luesoli’s stake three years ago with a bank loan and has met his monthly obligation to pay off that loan to the bank. He also expressed doubts that the Italian lawyer who accompanied Luesoli as a notary of the public was licensed by the Dominican courts.

The gaming industry is booming in the Dominican Republic. Casinos are licensed in some hotels and Class II gaming is licensed at betting shops known locally as ‘books.’ In 2006 the National Assembly approved the restriction of gaming devices to casinos and betting shops and a fixed machine tax, which is around US$115 in the Santo Domingo area and less is other provinces. (E-02.19.08)

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