Neighbors and merchants of Sant Antoni ask the government of Mayor Ada Colau to transfer the traditional Sunday exchange of trading cards to the neighborhood round. Unexpectedly, the World Cup revitalized this very analogical custom among children. So much so that lately the crowds are unleashing a few problems in the area, especially between Comte d'Urgell and Tamarit streets.
A woman in a wheelchair has trouble leaving the house every Sunday, for example. And a few businesses lament that the crowds complicate her work. In the Tawhid fruit shop they say that the crowd hides them so much that no one enters, and in the Únic flower shop that they cannot work properly that way, that months ago they gave up opening what was always the best day of the week, which on top of this Sunday It is Sant Jordi and the following is Mother's Day, the most important days of the year, and that...
In addition, they add, with a move of a few meters, we would get closer to the armistice, we would breathe life into the round, we would appease the deep, bloody and bitter neighborhood conflict that the definitive transformation of this central road after years of provisionality unleashed among supporters of its pacification and those who prefer the buses to return.
“We were never in favor of pacification, and we are not convinced by the municipal proposal that barely lets the buses get off,” says Lidia Núñez, from the Som Sant Antoni merchants association, “but if the City Council pacifies a road, it has to give it life. The exchange of cards would have plenty of space in the round, the children and their parents would be more comfortable, and also many shops. And so we would give people reasons to use the new round.”
Pep Sala, from the neighborhood's neighborhood association, an entity closer to pacification than that of the merchants – with nuances, the conflict in the Sant Antoni ring road is very complex – does not look down on the initiative. "It's just that it's next door... and if we solve problems and, incidentally, we propose new uses for the round...". "That we are talking about kids, which is not serious," says Fuensanta García, of the Sunday booksellers, in the hands of Sant Antoni Comerç, the other association of grocers in the neighborhood, "but it is true that lately you have formed small groups because of everywhere, and they sit on the ground in front of the stalls to show each other their trading cards... If they take them to the round, that's fine with us. I don't think anyone is going to feel harmed."
The City Council is caught off guard by the idea. Administrations do not like unforeseen events in electoral periods. In addition, the Consistory foresees that the works of the definitive urbanization of the round will be tendered this summer, so the idea of transferring those of the stickers there does not seem practical. In any case, this Sunday they will send a couple of civic agents so that the florists can work in conditions, although the florists do not see it so clearly... "It is a playful and popular activity - adds the City Council -, with an audience childish, with decades of tradition. Any change requires sensitivity and coordination with all entities”.
