I deleted the /var/log/nginx/error.log file, and then created a new one using:
sudo nano error.log
Doing ls -la
shows that the error.log and access.log have the same permissions.
When I try and start nginx I get the error:
alert: could not open error log file: open() "/var/log/nginx/error.log" failed permission denited.
Update
When trying to start nginx, I am also seeing:
emerg: /var/run/nginx.pid failed 13: permission denied.