In early October, I posted about the widely publicized and public demolition of Rústica, a Limeño restaurant/club that was on the verge of opening for the first time in Huancayo as a section of the sole mall in the city. The political drama surrounding the incident was more intricate and complex than I originally thought.

Update: Rústica is now fully-functioning and a popular hang out spot for those who have a little extra money to spend. The ground-level is a karaoke bar and club while the second floor is a scrumptious restaurant (my favourite dish is the pizza).

It turns out that the person responsible for the October demolition was Jorge Rodríguez, a provisional mayor who was probably taking advantage of the limited amount of time he would be in power. People agree that the mayor before him, Freddy Arana, was generally a good mayor. He just had some big people in government who weren’t on his side.

When Arana was usurped, Rodríguez was appointed in his place but knew that he would only be in the position for a few months because the national mayoral elections were coming up. When the Rústica opportunity arose, he jumped at the chance to make a name for himself. He called the national press and rallied his men to demolish instead of giving Rústica time to respond to the government’s demands regarding the licenses they needed. It became obvious that it was a set-up when all of the press left after Rodríguez felt he had achieved his goal; the journalists didn’t even stick around to hear Rústica’s side of the story. They were probably being paid to be there. Only one set of journalists stayed – an old man and his son who were taping for a local channel.

For months, there has been a lot of excitement over a new restaurant/club that would be opening at the end of September – it’s part of a chain from Lima called Rústica. The construction of the 2-storey building attached to Huancayo’s only mall had been going strong for around three months and faced a main street (Giraldez); people would peek through the cracks around the huge Rústica banners and imagine the yummy food they would have, the live bands they would see, the pizzazz, the action.

During the last week of September, people were handing out Rústica brochures on Giraldez Street inviting everyone to its inauguration on the 30th of September. The blessed day came, I headed over to the restaurant after work in the evening to take part in the festivities, and… there was nothing going on. Everything was as it was before, as if construction hadn’t finished yet, but this time there was a wall of police officers standing at the entrance with their human-tall shields they usually use for strikes and riots.

We heard in the news the next day that Rústica failed to obtain a government license to sell food and liquor on the premises. The inauguration date was postponed until October 7th. We waited patiently.

It’s the morning of October 7th. On the way to work, there’s a commotion at the Rústica site. Police officers are once again in the area, this time actively keeping the public at bay, forcing everyone to cross the street away from the action. Government officials enter Rústica and out comes a single lady, the sole representative available at 9:00am in the morning. They want to demolish the building, but why? Maybe they weren’t able to obtain a license to sell on time? Maybe the government was never planning to grant Rústica this license? We overhear part of the conversation – they needed another license for building on top of the sole wheelchair path to the mall?

The lady yells in desperation: “Esperen! Esperen!” (Wait!) She asks them to wait for her boss to arrive, but the front end loader is already advancing. The truck is already breaking the frame of the front entrance. Other government construction workers throw bricks at sections of glass where the truck isn’t able to enter. There’s more kerfuffle – a guy is pissed that the police officer is shoving him to get out of the way so he drops his bag to start a fight, a lady says that her things are inside the construction (now demolition) site and she wants entry but the officer continues to push her aside like the others.

What a Thursday morning.