The Municipalidad de Cartago will not close any businesses during tonight’s Independence celebrations, abandoning an order that was issued on Friday, narrowed on Saturday and withdrawn on Sunday. The Ministerio de Seguridad Pública now says the decision was never its to make.
Mario Redondo, mayor of Cartago, said the municipality would not carry out any closure of commercial premises on September 14. He asked businesses near the Palacio Municipal to consider closing voluntarily from 4 p.m., or to adopt whatever security measures they judged necessary, and said establishments were free to decide whether to keep operating. He added that it was not the municipality’s interest to generate controversy with the security ministry, and that both institutions needed to continue working together for the benefit of Cartago residents.
The reversal came hours after Gerald Campos, Minister of Seguridad Pública, addressed the dispute in a video statement. Campos said the closure of businesses and their operating hours were not a decision of his ministry but a power belonging to the Municipalidad de Cartago. He said the security operations planned for the city correspond to the same arrangements carried out in recent years under different administrations, and that his commitment was to provide security to families and to anyone visiting Cartago during the celebration.
Redondo has not accepted that framing. Asked about the minister’s remarks, he said the municipality is not an expert in national security matters and does not hold the reports that the Dirección de Inteligencia y Seguridad Nacional or Seguridad Pública possess on the criminal groups under investigation in Cartago. That, he said, leaves the municipality dependent on their recommendations.
That leaves the central question raised by merchants unanswered. The Cámara de Comercio, Industria, Turismo y Servicios de Cartago had demanded that the order be left without effect and that the municipality publish the record behind it, including the oficio if the request came from another institution, or the administrative act, technical report, legal criterion and security studies if the decision was municipal. It also asked which authority drew the perimeter and under what rule the Departamento de Patentes could order a preventive, blanket closure of businesses holding valid patentes. None of those documents has been made public.
Henry Alfaro, president of the chamber, welcomed the outcome. He said the most important result is that merchants are no longer exposed to sanctions for choosing to work, and that the chamber had not yet counted how many establishments would continue operating. Alfaro said the original measure represented a significant impact on the commercial sector because it contemplated closures from midday across an extensive area of the city.
As first communicated, the order covered establishments within a 200-metre (660-foot) radius of the Palacio Municipal, an area merchants describe as 18 city blocks, with general commerce stopping at midday and food service at 3 p.m. Redondo then announced an agreement with Seguridad Pública allowing normal operation until 4 p.m. and reducing the perimeter to 100 metres (330 feet), before withdrawing the requirement entirely. The chamber has said the sequence raises questions about how well planned the original decision was.
Seguridad Pública has said it reinforced its preventive and operational protocols for the celebrations because of disputes between organized crime structures and the execution of Operación CacerÃa. According to Redondo, the original order was grounded in security incidents recorded in the area in recent months, the large crowds expected, and threats directed at President Laura Fernández. The ministry has not published the underlying assessment, and the threat claim has been attributed publicly only by the mayor.
The civic act marking the arrival of the Independence Torch proceeds this evening outside the municipal building, with Fernández and other Executive Branch officials attending, ahead of tomorrow’s 205th anniversary of independence. Street closures around the venue and a coordinated security perimeter remain in place, arranged between the Asamblea Legislativa, Seguridad Presidencial, Fuerza Pública and the PolicÃa de Tránsito.
What has not changed however, is the underlying precedent. A municipal licensing department issued an instruction that could have shut dozens of lawful businesses on one of the busiest commercial evenings of the provincial year, and it was rescinded under public pressure rather than by any published legal finding. The documents that would settle whether the order was ever valid are still not on the record.
