Once again the merchants on Passeig de Gràcia save the Christmas furniture of Barcelona City Council. After the lights were turned on this Thursday, everything indicates that those from this axis will once again be the most posted on the networks. We hope that people who stand on the asphalt to obtain the most flattering angle do not suffer any accidents. Only the manga ornamentation of the Paseo de Sant Joan at the height of the friqui triangle commercial has the possibility of adding so many selfies. Those also arranged by the Consistory on Consell de Cent street will pass in a discreet manner. And the austere, un-Badalonian and much-seen municipal shed of recent years in Plaza Catalunya, Calle Aragó and Gran Via will be left out in this competition. It remains to be seen if the City Council extends it for another year.
Despite everything, the merchants on Passeig de Gràcia walk around with a frown. They do not understand that the City Council maintains the restrictions established last year to combat the energy crisis. These days the lights will turn on again and every day at five thirty in the afternoon, and they will go off an hour earlier than a couple of Christmases ago, at ten at night from Sunday to Thursday, at eleven on Fridays and on Saturdays and at one o'clock on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Three Wise Men.
“We do not understand that the City Council maintains such restrictive and unjustified hours,” laments Luis Sans, from the Passeig de Gràcia Association. The cost of increasing the walk by two hours each day throughout the campaign would be only 442 euros, a symbolic figure compared to the 170,000 that the installation cost. Last year, the City Council, merchants and restaurateurs agreed that the lights would be turned on one hour less each day due to the energy crisis. Unfortunately, the measure remains. For the sake of restoration, commerce and the Christmas excitement, we ask that the lights be turned off on weekdays at midnight and on Fridays and Saturdays, at two in the morning." The truth is that the municipal management of Christmas continues to be somewhat self-conscious.
The government of Mayor Jaume Collboni has not completely shaken off the manias of Ada Colau's people. In the previous mandate, the socialists already took control of these festivities and banished the institutional congratulations of the solstice, they sent Mr. Hivern to no one knows where, they proposed the renewal of a good part of the lighting and multiplied the aid so that these lights do not It's so much to the merchants, but the City Council still doesn't give in to this party. The lighting of the lights held yesterday on Passeig de Gràcia was once again as neat as it was un-Christmas. This show at Mercè, and it would have been just as good. And if we don't take care of Christmas, we will only have a very long Black Friday.
The City Council had the opportunity to reverse this situation. In the October Economy Commission, PSC, Junts, BComú and Vox supported a PP proposal to make Barcelona a Christmas reference, and to this end it was planned to install a traditional nativity scene in Plaça Sant Jaume, extend the hours of lights, putting Christmas booths in Plaza Catalunya... But the socialists supported the initiative, clarifying that the hours of the lights were still being negotiated with the sector, "because what we are not going to do is vote against Christmas," they pointed out. then sources close to the executive. We will see what happens with the Sant Jaume manger, because if the setup is understood at first glance, Barcelona will lose one of its most deeply-rooted Christmas traditions. Apparently, this year's will feature Neapolitan figures. A comprehensible nativity scene in San Jaume? Honestly, I don't know where we're going.
