This Tuesday, the ERC councilors redoubled their hostilities against the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni and the Gremi de Restauració of Barcelona. In the end, beyond the political tensions, comparing the numbers raised by some and others, the conclusion is that half of the terraces in this city do not comply in some way with the candlestick regulations. They are frictions that distance Republicans and socialists even more.
Councilor Jordi Castellana, spokesperson for the Republicans in the City Council, came to denounce in the morning that most of the city’s terrace businesses fail to comply in some way with the municipal ordinance, and that the Socialist executive does nothing about it. regard. We are talking about 6,048 files that affect 2,856 terraces. Of all these files, up to 5,340 respond to serious or very serious infractions. In this way, the Republicans concluded, 60% of the candle businesses in Barcelona currently have disciplinary proceedings open for serious or very serious infractions.
“The lack of control on the part of Mayor Collboni’s executive is evident,” said Councilor Castellana in a press conference. Barcelona deserves to be governed. So at the municipal plenary session this Friday we will ask the municipal government why it is not acting on so many infractions, 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 sanction, and also advanced that they will oppose the modification of the terrace rate agreed upon by the municipal government and the Junts councilors.
What happened is that both socialists and restaurateurs counterattacked shortly after and corrected some of the data provided a few hours earlier by the Republicans. The municipal government will try to dismantle the accusations of the ERC group in the plenary session of the City Council this Friday. Yesterday, however, they wanted to make a small preview. According to sources from the Consistory and also from the Gremi de Restauració, Barcelona currently has many more terraces than those counted by those from Esquerra, with around two thousand or so more.
Esquerra pointed out that bars and restaurants with candlelight in public spaces add up to a total of 4,174, while City Hall sources assure 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 showed this last result dates back to last March. And, according to these data, Barcelona terraces with files represent just over 47% of the total. In addition, municipal sources and the Gremi de Restauració also added in order to distort the readings of the Republicans, a business can add up to several serious or very serious infractions. The Republicans assure that they did not pull any figures out of their sleeve, that it was the City Council itself that provided them with the data in question.
The left-wing press conference took place after the Barcelona Federation of Neighborhood Associations (Favb) reported at the beginning of October that the City Council had allowed 33 cases of terrace removal in establishments located in the Ciutat Vella district to lapse . Then the municipal government attributed the responsibility for what happened to the management of the communes during the previous mandate.
And the Gremi de Restauració took advantage of the third to denounce a campaign of persecution. “The Gremi has well-founded suspicions that the monitoring carried out on other sectors that also legally or illegally occupy public space is scarce or completely non-existent. This fixation with restoration is doubly reprehensible: first because it represents an unacceptable persecution of the sector and, second, because neglecting the obligation to adequately inspect the activities of other sectors entails inexcusable negligence on the part of the City Council.
