Multiple Properties Seized in One of Mexico's Hottest Beach Destinations Sam Dangremond and Whitney Robinson - Town & Country
go to original June 20, 2016

Furniture is removed from a Tulum hotel (Mexico News Daily)

Tulum is known for its balmy blue water, perfect white sand beaches, and captivating Mayan ruins. But last Friday, the scene was far from pretty as 16 hotels, restaurants, shops, and private residences along the Mexican beach were seized in a government land dispute.

"It's essentially a war for the land," Sophia Perlstein of Tulum's KM33 boutique tells T&C. KM33 is next door to Coqui Coqui, the region's buzziest hotel and spa, where guests were reportedly forced to leave during the raid. Three hundred tourists in the area were evacuated by 200 privately hired security guards, and some of those who resisted were met with tear gas. Instagram users have rallied around the hashtag #freecoquicoqui to express their support for what is one of the most photographed and Instagrammed destinations in the region.

The evictions were in response to an alleged breach of an oral lease contract between business owners and the municipality and were supposedly the subject of a judicial order," Mexico News Daily reports. One hotel operator told the outlet that the local governor has "strong interests" in the Tulum area: "We know well that all this is in response to the sale - with false documents  - of several beachfront pieces of land by the governor. Now, before he leaves office, he wants to make sure he doesn't lose what he earned from the sale."

Read the rest at Town & Country

Related: Tulum Tourists Get Evicted: What You Need to Know (Men's Journal)

Related: More Than a Dozen Tulum Establishments Evicted Without Notice (Riviera Maya News)

Related: Governor Implicated in Tulum Evictions (Mexico News Daily)

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