For several years, Assem Aldilaimi, entrepreneur and owner of the Baker Market supermarket chain has been trying unsuccessfully to open a halal butcher’s shop in Anderlecht. One of his neighbors opposes the opening of trade.
Assem Aldilaimi has received from the municipality of Anderlecht all the necessary authorizations to open his butcher’s shop. But he will still have to wait for the agreement of his neighbor. For the entrepreneur, this situation is beyond comprehension. “I’ve owned it for five years and more and everything is already ready. Showcases, scales, meat grinders. We are only waiting for one thing, to receive the meat and start cutting,” reports bx1.
But before, it will be necessary to settle the dispute with the co-ownership. It is an empty space considered as a parking lot and overlooks the service door of the trade. For the store to be able to open its doors, it would be necessary to transform this small space into a delivery area, but an occupant of the building is opposed to this and has been blocking the takeover process for years. “We did everything to buy the area, but the trustee is against it and that’s the crux of the problem,” laments the owner of halal butcher shops across Europe.
For the entrepreneur, the motives put forward by the neighbor are purely racist. “He said that this kind of trade does not fit into the environment, it cannot be opened up at the risk of distorting the sector”. At the level of the municipality of Anderlecht, the mayor recognizes that everything is in order with regard to the authorizations requested and that the two parties must make the effort to find a consensus. “It is not the role of the municipality to settle the dispute. I made sure that the person concerned had all the required permits”, underlines Alain Kestemont, mayor of Anderlecht
No longer knowing how to win his case, Assem Aldilaimi relies on justice and hopes for a quick solution for this situation which dates back to October 2020, and caused him to lose a lot of money.