Two Gozitan restaurateurs are fuming at what they claim is discriminatory treatment by the Land Department after it removed a wooden canopy yesterday from outside their eatery in Marsalforn.

Workers turned up outside Neptunes Bar and Restaurant and began to dismantle the canopy 48 hours after a judge threw out a fourth request by the brothers, Francis and George Schembri, to stop the department from removing the structure.

Francis Schembri said the issue revolves around the contestation of ownership of the porch outside the restaurant. The government had initially denied it owned that patch of land only to do a U-turn and claim it did, he said.

The canopy, Mr Schembri said, had been constructed under a permit from the planning authority [which does not enter into the issue of ownership] on land the brothers claim had been in their family since 1920 – it was one of the first bars in the area.