Lviv official accuses OCU cleric of lobbying illegal restaurants

A conflict has broken out in Lviv between the city authorities and the family of an OCU cleric over two illegally built restaurants. A city hall official accused the clergyman of lobbying for the interests of the family business, while the priest himself claims that he tried to find a compromise with the city, but his proposal was ignored. The authorities have already decided to demolish one of the institutions.

According to ZAXID.NET, Yevhen Boyko, the administrator of the executive committee of the Lviv City Council, said that the OCU cleric Andriy Kindzelsky is trying to convince the city authorities to allow the “unfortunate entrepreneurs” who have repeatedly deceived the community to continue working. We are talking about the restaurants Fabryka Izhy on Shpytalna Street and Yazykata Tescha on Svobody Avenue, which belong to BNP-Ltd. Both establishments were built with serious violations, and the city council is challenging their legalization in court. on November 21, the executive committee decided to dismantle the three-story Fabrika Izhi restaurant, giving the owners 20 days to voluntarily demolish the structures.

For his part, Andriy Kindzelsky confirmed that the restaurants are his family business, which he has stepped away from managing in recent years to focus on church service. According to him, he turned to the city council with a compromise proposal: his family would dismantle the Yazykata Teshcha restaurant, and the city would help with the design documentation for the legal operation of other establishments, such as the Food Factory and the Knights’ Gallery.“I was told that they would pass the proposal on to the higher authorities, and the very next day we received a letter about the voluntary dismantling of the kiosk on Shpytalna Street,” explained the priest.

The company that owns the restaurants, BNP Ltd, is owned by Lviv residents Nadiya Tarasevich and Bohdan Dziadyk. Litigation over the illegal construction of the Yazykata Teshcha restaurant has been ongoing since 2010. Meanwhile, at the request of the city authorities, the unauthorized construction on Shpytalna Street has already been disconnected from electricity and water supply, and the lease of the land plot under it has expired.

Earlier it was reported that in the village of Prylbychi, Lviv region, there was a conflict between two UGCC communities. Representatives of one of them, associated with the “excommunicated movement,” attempted to seize the local church by force.