Wine firm to leave its homeland

Sevilen, a leading Turkish wine firm founded 68 years ago in the Aegean port city of İzmir, is planning to leave the city due to a license problem with the city’s municipality.

Aiming to establish a plant worth 10 million Turkish Liras in Aydın, another Aegean city, Sevilen considered moving in two years. The firm was founded in 1942 by İsa Güner, who migrated from Bulgaria to İzmir. Its plant was included within the scope of first-class non-sanitary enterprises with a regulation on workplace licenses, which was changed in 2005.

“İzmir’s 68-year-old firm is moving to Aydın within two years. We will open a new factory with an investment of 10 million liras. I am undertaking new debts for no reason. We do not want any more nuisances in İzmir. The municipality has a directive, and we do not have any complaints,” said Coşkun Güner, Sevilen chairman and chief of the Wine Producers’ Association.

Sevilen’s production plant is on 12,000 square meters of land in Gaziemir.

Informing on the difficult process with İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, Güner said: “Our plant had the license of second class of non-sanitary enterprises. With the regulation, it was turned into a first-class non-sanitary enterprise. As we built the plant in the 1980s, some additions have been made in time. The municipality inspected the entire factory area. We knocked down depots and social facilities. They demanded us to remove tanks as well.”

Noting that the firm could not obtain the license due to such obstacles, Güner said: “We will make a legal business, and we do not have an objection to this. But we expected a more considerate manner. Now we will demand an allowance of two years to move. “

Güner also noted that the insufficient factory area also constituted another reason for the departure from İzmir. “Rather than opening another factory in İzmir, we will shift to the Aydın Ortaklar Organized Industrial Zone. We purchased 25,000 square meters of land there. ... I do not know what it will bring but we have decided to continue. We will bear losses but we have set our heart into this sector.”

“A plant remains in the second class if it conducts just storage rather than production. [Sevilen] has been included in the first class due to production. Therefore it needs to comply with the new criteria, one of which is a zoning problem,” said Ferda Eser, deputy secretary-general at İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. “Sevilen’s plant is now in the urban working area. It needs to withdraw from the area it has expanded to. Due to the regulation, we cannot grant a first-class certificate wholly to the facility, which is now in the city. We do not close down the facility.”

Eser said that the municipality displayed a considerate approach to Sevilen, and added that it is the regulation that should actually be debated.