Bit of a shindig at Cacao Beach Resort Spa and Casino

[Lambada]

According to El Nuevo Diario on Friday a sheriff and some 70 armed police and military appeared and proceeded to eject guests, visitors and 100 employees. European, Canadian and American guests were scarcely given time to pack their belongings before being put on the street, it says. Property damage was caused during the altercation and several hours later three bus loads of newly arrived tourists were 'rudely' turned away. The hotel is in Las Terrenas, Samaná. Great for tourism, if true !

Any witnesses/victims who post on DR1? The article is here:
Desalojan de manera violenta Hotel Cacao Beach; tiran los turistas a la calle

[Chirimoya]

As usual, a dire piece of journalism. Although they give a whole bunch of what appear to be eyewitness details (a report received from the scene, possibly from the hotel authorities) does it say anywhere why the police and army took this action? They mention the sheriff and the lawyer representing the accusing party, but what was the accusation? Where did all those poor tourists end up, and what did they have to say about the experience? Hopefully LT-based posters can fill in the gaps!

One thing that is true in the article is the final sentence:

This incident creates an international image of a country at war, undermining all this government's efforts to project the country as a high-end tourist option.

Yes - whatever the hotel owners or management were guilty of, nothing justifies this treatment of tourists or staff.

[Lambada]

The 'why' is clearer in the Clave Digital report - I posted it here
International Terrorist gathering point raided by Samana Police

[Chirimoya]

Clave has much higher journalistic standards, yes.

These two threads ought to be merged.

[sparky11867]

Hah! I was there. It was crazy, especially since I hadn't planned on staying there (long story). Anyhoo, on my second day there, I had just come back from diving, when I found 3 official looking people in my room with my poor, scared-looking mother. We had 5 minutes to pack our bags and get out. No refund, no nothing. The good news is that only about 20 people were actually staying there, so not a large amount of people. The word I got was that the old owners were coming back to re-claim the property as the new owners were in default on payment or some such thing. I felt bad for the employees as there were many of them just milling about and I worried that they wouldn't have jobs after all this. We'll see. I ended up going to Karesh Village where I was originally supposed to stay, and it was very nice and they were very accomodating. All in all, a weird day, a little scary at first as I thought there was a dangerous criminal on the loose on the grounds or some such thing as the police were searching all the rooms and they didn't speak english, so I didn't really find out what was going on until I met some european tourists. On a positive note, the food wasn't very good at the resort so I was glad I was "forced" to eat somewhere else. LOL. Rebecca (will be posting a full trip report soon)

[Lambada]

Thank you Rebecca - good of you to take the trouble to post a report. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday & that it will be uneventful........

[Juniper]

I am staying at the Alisei Hotel which is just a few meters from Cacao Beach
and I heard the same story. The new owners were in default with the payments and there was a court order to close down the place.

I was actually stuck in the traffic jam on the road in front of the hotel when the buses came to pick up the employees. It is always sad when people loose their jobs without warning.