“In mid-July our ordeal begins, we can’t rest at night all summer long”. This is how the residents of the Bellamar neighborhood in Pineda de Mar (Maresme) summarize their ordeal since 2008, when the City Council decided to place dozens of musical activities on the beach, less than a hundred meters from the homes.
The Mossos d’Esquadra have raised the acoustic measurements taken at the Prosecutor’s Office to demonstrate that the residents of the Bellamar neighborhood suffer from extensive overexposure to the intense noise caused by musical activities. The City Council recognizes the problem and assures that it will transfer to other locations a large part of the activities that are now centralized on the beach so that they “are rotating”, as explained by the first deputy mayor and councilor for Security, SÃlvia Biosca.
The residents complain that “to avoid legal problems”, the mayor of Pineda de Mar, Xavier Amor, has every year issued a decree by which he suspends the noise quality ordinance in a kilometer around where the Arts festival is held of Summer A decree that will not be applied this year due to the ongoing investigation.
“For more than fifteen years they have been promising us that this will change”, the neighbors explain. There are families who suffer dramatic situations, “with children with serious mental disabilities who cannot withstand the hustle and bustle of festivals during the summer”.
“They start with Psicobilly”, which over the course of five nights blasts the loudspeakers until six in the morning. “They continue with the Arts d’Estiu”, they explain, which has come to “celebrate 21 concerts until midnight”, although it then continues in the annex of the Village, a leisure space open “until two o’clock the morning”. And if that wasn’t enough, “the barracks of the main festival” arrive with music until six in the morning. Added to all these activities are “the bars with the music playing out of control until three in the morning”. An “unsustainable” situation, say the neighbors.
“We have reported it in every possible way, but they have ignored us”, say those affected, and regret the null case that the local police make of their complaints. They explain that in one year they have submitted more than 75 petitions and 57 signatures from neighbors and that “a single family has called the police up to 46 times”. Some of these residents have taken their irritation to the municipal council.
This year they finally decided to take action and report the excessive noise to the Mossos d’Esquadra, as well as the activities at the State Coastal Demarcation. The official measures show an excess of decibels inside the homes, so they have raised the case to the Prosecutor’s Office.
