VILLA CLARA, Cuba. — At the entrance to the Santa Rosalía Gastronomic Complex, a restaurant located very close to the central square of Santa Clara, the doorman tries to explain to a family that lunch can only be paid for by cards, which was a measure indicated since last 1 August. The five potential customers leave cursing. “In this country, not even having the money,” protests a man accompanied by his mother-in-law, his wife and his two children.
“We already went to La Bodeguita and the same thing. The workers themselves say that for days it has been practically empty. I am self-employed and they do not pay me by transfer like state workers”, argues Caibarien Jorge Machado, visiting the provincial capital. “Things change here from one day to the next without thinking about the consequences.”
It turns out that several facilities of the Palmares chain in Villa Clara have begun charging for their services through magnetic cards and payment gateways in national currency. The measure was put into practice at the beginning of this year in the central Hotel Central in the city of Santa Clara. Now, other restaurants and bars such as La Bodeguita del Medio, Santa Rosalía, Carishow and La Esquina del Home do not accept cash either.
“I don’t have a card or a modern cell phone. Now I won’t even be able to have a coffee anywhere and, to top it off, it costs fifteen pesos”, he refers to CubaNet Armando Rodríguez, a regular boatman from the city to Santa Rosalía.
In a response to users who inquired into his Facebook page Regarding the new form of payment, Palmares Villa Clara Branch answered that the service “is in national currency, in the image Bandec, BPA and Metropolitano cards appear. There are two POS in these facilities, one for each currency”.
“Why isn’t there also the option with cash? Please, what a trick to continue crushing Cubans if in other countries, developed countries, by the way, they also pay in cash, in addition to digital means,” wrote a user identified as Lupe Fernández on the Palmares Villa Clara Branch page, but received no public response from the institution.
“Imitating is the greatest ridiculous thing when your infrastructure is not up to that,” said another woman named Niurka Martínez.
“Every time they introduce one of those inventions, it leads them to failure, it lurches from one place to another, they will tell me about the decommercialization of the place. It’s one thing after another looking for ways that don’t fit”, says Iván Romero, from Santa Clara.
In front of the Santa Rosalía restaurant itself, there is a queue of more than 40 people requesting the services of the BPA bank. The numbers for the box and request cards were delivered from 8:30 in the morning, so there is also no option to make last minute deposits to pay at these facilities.
For more than six months these sites have shown a rather depressed offer. A worker at this complex assured that “instead of benefiting us, it affects us in every way. First, because no customers come in, just yesterday we turned back more than forty people between lunch and dinner. All of us are very upset with this measure, it is give to the one who did not give you. We also have family to support and things have gotten very bad. Even if the salary remains the same, imagine how much we lose now without the tips.”
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