To say only that the display was impressive is an understatement. An army of inspectors of all existing modalities landed on Thursday night in the Gulf of Poblenou triangle and, guarded by the Barcelona Urban Guard, audited around thirty public premises. A forceful new strategy designed and promoted by the municipal manager, Albert Dalmau, baptized as “multi-inspection”, and which is part of Pla Endreça which, as its name indicates, aspires to “organize” the city to make it safer, more convivial, social and inclusive.
The one in Sant Martí was the second operation. And it will not be the last because, in the words of Dalmau, “these performances are here to stay.” A warning to sailors who this Thursday saw, shocked, how without prior warning inspectors knocked on the door of their shops, bars or nightclubs and, one after another, turned the premises upside down.
El Raval was the area chosen for the first of the operations, which are carried out in two phases, night and day. The place and establishments are selected based on “heat maps” that quantify all types of incidents that have to do with misuse of public space, which generate bad coexistence, inconvenience, dirt and insecurity. Specific areas with a high concentration of establishments that also generate calls for neighborhood complaints to 112.
In that first operation in the Raval on October 27, 14 establishments were inspected at night and another 15 establishments during the day. 132 minutes were drawn up and five stores, most of them butcher shops, were closed preventively for the day for food safety.
Sant Martí was chosen for the second plan and two journalists from La Vanguardia joined in Thursday's operation. Confidentiality is essential to guarantee the success of a device in which more than a hundred people participate, including the Urban Police, Mossos d'Esquadra and the inspectors, in addition to the highest political officials of the district, with councilor David Escudé at the helm. head. Only a few people in charge of managing all the documentation needed for on-site inspections and coordinating so many people from such disparate services knew the selected locations. And it was also decided to access the establishments in unison, trying to prevent word from spreading and infractions from being corrected quickly.
The meeting room of the Sant Martí Urban Police station was too small for the first briefing by the mayor and head of the device, Diego Calero. There were no chairs for the hundred or so attendees, including police in uniform, plainclothes and inspectors. There was the DSI, the direction of the City Council's inspection services, with its boss, Eva Mur, at street level with them; district inspectors, the Urban Police, technicians from the Public Health Agency, Labor inspectors, Environment inspectors, inspectors from the Municipal Institute of Finance, Firefighters and, as if that were not enough, tax inspectors from the Tax Agency.
The meeting point that served as the advanced command center was the central patio of the Encants market, which gave up its facilities. From there the inspectors moved on foot, divided into groups guarded by civilian urban guards, with a reinforcement of patrols from the neighborhood and the UREP to give more security to the proceedings.
The night was very long, no incidents were reported and all those responsible for the premises were caught off guard. Some had time to lower the blinds of others also in his name to avoid problems.
Without the need to stop the activity except in those two that were sealed by Public Health technicians for food safety, the Andalucía bar and the Dixi 724, in the rest the clientele hardly even knew what was happening.
At the Sonora venue, a guitarist did not move from the stage between mugs of beers that went from table to table, while the young manager could not cope looking for documentation that one after another was requesting. At the Wolf nightclub, just to name a few of the venues, an inspector congratulated the owner: “Never in all these years have I seen such exemplary waste management in a space with so many bars.”
Dalmau already said it: “There are many more who comply than those who find it more costly to pay the fines and not do it well.”
It must be said that those responsible for the premises are already accustomed to inspections. Day or night. But not that suddenly they all come to you at once and, above all, that the gentlemen from the Tax Agency appear who normally respond to suspicions of money laundering or tax crimes and who for the first time joined a device of these characteristics. What were they looking for? Nothing specific but checking that both the billing and the use of the dataphones were correct.
