ERC councilors yesterday redoubled their hostilities against the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni and the Barcelona Restoration Guild. In the end, beyond the political tensions, looking at the numbers raised by one and the other, the conclusion is that half of the terraces in this city are in some way in breach of the watchdog regulations. These are frictions that drive republicans and socialists even further apart.
Councilor Jordi Castellana, spokesman for the Republicans at Barcelona City Council, came to report in the morning that most of the businesses with terraces in the city are in some way in breach of the municipal ordinance, and that the Socialist executive does not do anything to avoid it. We are talking about 6,048 cases affecting 2,856 terraces. Of all these files, up to 5,340 respond to serious or very serious infringements. In this way, the Republicans concluded, 60% of businesses with a terrace in Barcelona currently have disciplinary proceedings open for serious or very serious infringements.
“The lack of control on the part of Mayor Collboni’s executive is evident – assured councilor Castellana in a press conference. Barcelona deserves to be governed. So at the municipal meeting this Friday we will ask the municipal government why it is not acting in the face of so many violations, and we will also ask it what measures it intends to carry out from now on.”
Castellana regretted that they are not aware that any of these files have resulted in a serious penalty, and also advanced that they will oppose the modification of the terrace fee agreed by the municipal government and Junts councillors.
What happens is that both socialists and restaurateurs counterattacked shortly after and corrected some of the data provided hours earlier by the Republicans. The municipal government will try to dismantle the accusations of the ERC group at the City Council meeting on Friday. Yesterday, however, they wanted to make a small advance. According to sources from the Consistory and also from the Restoration Guild, Barcelona currently has many more terraces than the Esquerra says; around two thousand and more.
Esquerra pointed out that there are a total of 4,174 bars and restaurants with terraces in public spaces, while City Council sources say that there are actually 6,375. Municipal sources also assure that the difference corresponds to the number of terraces authorized during the pandemic that were finally consolidated, that the balance that gave this last result dates from March. And, according to this data, the terraces in Barcelona with records represent a little more than 47% of the total. In addition, they also added municipal sources and the Restoration Guild in order to distort the readings of the Republicans, a business can accumulate several serious or very serious violations. The Republicans assure that they have not taken any figures off their sleeves, that it was the City Council itself that provided them with the data in question.
The d’Esquerra press conference takes place after the Federation of Barcelona Residents’ Associations (FAVB) denounced at the beginning of October that the City Council let 33 files for the removal of terraces in establishments located in the Ciutat district expire old woman Then the municipal government attributed responsibility for what had happened to the management of the commons during the previous mandate.
And the Restoration Guild took the opportunity to denounce a campaign of persecution. “The Guild has well-founded suspicions that the monitoring of other sectors that also legally or illegally occupy public space is scarce or outright null. This fixation with restoration is doubly objectionable: firstly because it amounts to an inadmissible persecution of the sector and, secondly, because neglecting the obligation to adequately inspect the activities of other sectors entails inexcusable negligence on the part of the City Council”.
