The new Valencia City Council will fulfill its electoral promise and will suppress the stalls where farmers could directly sell their food, considering them “unfair competition for municipal markets.”
The last four markets for the non-sedentary sale of food products, better known as Tira de Comptar, had generated tensions between the previous government team and the opposition, especially as a result of the protests in the Mercado de Colón that the PP endorsed. .
Faced with them, the previous government team, seeing that the elections were approaching, tried to shield this practice by declaring it an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC). The then Councilor for Agriculture, Alejandro Ramon (Compromís), recalled the centuries of history of the comptar strip and even explained that this way for farmers to sell their products directly survived even the Nueva Planta Decree of 1707.
But the polls have turned the tables and the victorious PP will fulfill its promise. This Friday, the Local Government Board will approve the suppression of the last four markets for the non-sedentary sale of food products, considering them unfair competition and direct damage to municipal market stalls.
In exchange, the mayoress of Valencia, María José Catalá, has offered this Thursday to the affected vendors 200 empty stalls in the municipal markets.
In a statement, sources from the consistory have explained that the four markets for the non-sedentary sale of food products for which the procedures have begun are the ones in Plaza de la Figuereta in Castellar, Plaza de Benimaclet and Calle Joaquim Benlloch, which they could have a maximum of 15 stops, and the one on Calle Martínez Ferrando, with a maximum of 20 stops. The latter, close to the glamorous Mercado de Colón, is the one that sparked the controversy.
In the motion presented to the Local Government Board, it is recalled that the PP opposed this measure and has now asked the Climate Emergency service to “promote the pertinent procedures to proceed, in accordance with the provisions of article 5 of the Ordinance regulation of the non-sedentary sale and other applicable regulations, to the extinction of the four markets of non-sedentary sale of food typology”.
Likewise, the Markets service has been asked to proceed to study the existing vacancies in the different municipal markets with food stalls, to guarantee the right to relocation provided for in the regulations.
In this sense, the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, during the visit made by this Jew to the Russafa market, has highlighted that the proposal presented to the Local Government Board aims, on the one hand, “that the Tira de Comptar let it be what has been all life in the city of Valencia” and, on the other hand, to prevent the extraordinary markets of the Tira de Comptar “from unfair competition to the municipal markets” by being installed in their doors.
Thus, Catalá has highlighted that “not only do we prohibit, but we offer them 200 empty stalls in the municipal markets so that, if they want and under the same conditions as municipal vendors, they can be in a stall and can sell their products.”
