Permits!!!

We made another round of permitting Tuesday and Wednesday. This mostly involves driving around and around between home, Aguadilla and Isabela to find out the oficina we need is closed (because of the holidays) or that we need a certain permit - one that is only available from an oficina that is closed - before we can get or apply for the permit in the oficina we're in.

There is one particular permit that seems to be the hinge for a lot of other permits. It’s called a patenta and we get it from the oficina municipal in Isabela. The problem is, the oficina es cerrado (closed) until after new years. We are opening with temporary permits and so far all the officiales seem to be okay with that. They seem to understand we’re moving as fast as we can.

Among other things, we had to go to get our criminal background checks to transfer the liquor license. You’ll all be glad to know we both have clean records.

The other permit that is a huge hassle is something we can only get in Mayaguez which is about an hour from here. No one seems to know where the office in Mayaguez is or how to get there. Oh, well. We’ll worry about that one next week. We have 120 days (from Wednesday) to finish the process – or we get to start all over!