Mayor of Yerevan Haik Marutyan isn’t planning on going to the area near Opera House and meet with the citizens protesting against the dismantling of cafes built in that area. This is what Spokesperson of the mayor of Yerevan Hakob Karapetyan told NEWS.am.

It has already been three days since protesters launched a protest against the dismantling of cafes built in the areas near the Opera House. Yesterday representatives of Yerevan Municipality and the owners of the cafes had a meeting at Yerevan Municipality, but the meeting was fruitless. The municipality’s representatives stress the fact that the cafes will be dismantled no matter what. The owners of the cafes claim that the dismantling will leave 300 people unemployed and they won’t allow the dismantling. The situation was tense in central Yerevan since early this morning. Demonstrators had closed down Mashtots Avenue, but the police red berets opened it, detaining 16 citizens and applying force against others. Throughout the day, the municipality was trying to restart the dismantling, but the employees of the cafes resisted, and the municipality stopped dismantling. During the attempt to dismantle Jazzve café, there was a clash between police officers and café owners, and there are detainees. At this moment, dismantling has been temporarily stopped.