Andrea Lewis started a petition in April 2024 which garnered 3,000 signatures of support for Belmiro de Freitas and Manuela Walter to stay at the cafe after States Property services put the lease out to tender.
Later that year the lease was awarded to another company, but Mr de Freitas and Ms Walter refused to move out, prompting the States to start an eviction process.
The couple were granted a three-year stay of eviction in September last year but P&R then said it hoped to recover legal costs known to be well in excess of £100,000.
The matter finally came to a close last week with P&R announcing they had come to an ‘amicable resolution’ with the couple.
‘Belmiro and Manuela are so relieved to draw a line under this and be able to get on with there lives again,’ said Mrs Lewis.
‘I don’t know what the financial arrangement they came to was, but they seem happy enough with it.’
She added it was still a bittersweet ending to the saga as the couple still had the eviction notice hanging over them, meaning they would have to move out at the end of the 2028 summer season.
‘But at least they have now have time to prepare,’ she said.
‘The way it was handled from the start has been awful, they basically found out about the tender by reading about it in the paper.’
The dispute started prior to last year’s election and Mrs Lewis said she was glad that the new P&R, led by Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez, had decided to go down the route of mediation rather than through the courts.
‘The original pigheadedness was the problem,’ she said.
‘It was sensible to sit down and find a solution rather than take it through the courts. In the end it is the taxpayers who have to foot the bill.’