The two couples from the Badalona Urban Guard that this past weekend were on duty on the beaches could not cope. On Saturday the informative work began due to the restrictions on the use of the sandbank imposed by the mayor Xavier García Albiol on his last side. A new ordinance that affects the coast and with which it intends to "order and civilize" the beaches.
The guards spent their time answering questions and warning users of the prohibitions. And despite the fact that the proclamation is written quite clearly, the casuistry of use of the beach is so diverse that it admits different interpretations about what can or cannot be done. Hence, this newspaper has wanted to clarify some with the Urban Police and the Consistory itself.
This is the point that generates more interpretations. Surely the most important, because it prohibits "the installation of tents, awnings, umbrellas or parasols with non-diaphanous sides, camping-type tables and organized camping on the beach throughout the year".
The one who writes will be 55 years old in the next few days and remembers summer days as if it were right now loading the mythical SM bus with the camping table, the chairs, the portable cooler with ice, the umbrella from which we hung a remnant sheet to one side to provide better shade, the drink and the tuppers with breaded tenderloin, peppers and potato omelette. A day at the beach gave life to my parents and their four children. We lived in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, but we were more from the Montgat beach than the Badalona beach, because my father liked to get in a few meters and fish with his lungs.
“There are many families that cannot afford a beach bar menu. Not even this one where I work. It does not seem right to me that you want to prohibit the family lunch or dinner of a lifetime on the beach ”. Says the head chef of one of the sandy beach bars on the Estació beach, while he prepares the menu for the day.
A few meters from the Petroli bridge, a group of lifelong neighbors, many from the same block as the mother of the journalist and writer Jorge Javier Vázquez, are in favor of the measure. "What could not be is that to get from my house to the sand I have to avoid so many tents and awnings, that this seemed more like a fair than a beach."
They all applaud the will to bring order and maintain a minimum of coexistence that, they say, had been lost. Of course, the ones that really worried them yesterday was the lamentable state of the water. Almost none could bathe. As soon as four drops fall, the collector overflows and the beach is filled with crap that makes bathing impossible. And with the restrictions and no water in the showers, many bathers returned home dry as they arrived.
From the Badalona City Council they try to answer the doubts. As for the collector, remember that this week the mayor will travel to Brussels to get the 30 million euros that it costs to build three rainwater tanks that prevent the collector from collapsing in storms.
And as for the prohibitions, they assure that the urban guards will "respect" the "orderly" family tables and even those small tents that, even though they are not diaphanous, are used to protect children and babies from the sun. In any case, the initial idea is always to inform and only fine, between 600 and 1,500 euros, when the user persists in her attitude, despite the requirements of the Urban Police or is blatantly a repeat offender.
