The mayors of Arenys de Mar, Calella, Canet, Malgrat, Palafolls, Pineda de Mar, Sant Pol de Mar, Santa Susanna and Tordera have agreed on the need to increase the number of police officers in the region. They consider it a grievance that in the last additions only four agents have reached the Alt Maresme. Therefore, they will ask for a meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena.
The Alt Maresme has tourism as one of its main sources of income and has already become a tourist power with towns such as Santa Susanna, Calella, Malgrat de Mar or Pineda de Mar, which are part of the most visited destinations. Despite this, security continues to be one of the main problems since, according to the mayors, they do not receive the attention that would be necessary from the management of the Mossos d'Esquadra.
The subregion has 12 municipalities that have a total of almost 150,000 inhabitants, 32% of Maresme, a figure that triples during the summer months, without any reinforcements in security as occurs in other tourist towns. Hence, eight mayors join their voice to demand more police reinforcement. They also highlight that “with the Local Police staff, surveillance systems and other security policies, the city councils assume a very significant part of the workload” as well as official pressure and responsibility in the field of public security. .
Mayors express in the letter the need for the Department of the Interior to allocate a greater number of officers to the Maresme police stations and regret that, with the last promotion of agents, only four officers were incorporated into the area, while in Mataró 32 new agents entered. They highlight that, in relation to the number of inhabitants, 14 new mossos should have arrived in Alt Maresme.
If the Catalan average of Catalan police officers per 1,000 inhabitants is 4.5 cops, this figure falls sharply in Alt Maresme, where they only have about 190 officers between the Basic Police Area of Arenys de Mar and the sub-commissioner's office of Pineda de Mar, which in turn depends on the North Metropolitan Region. In the Alt Maresme, the average of cops per thousand inhabitants drops to 1.2 officers.
The mayors' reaction comes once a significant increase in criminal activity against tourists has been detected. A clear example is Calella, where the theft of musical instruments from a band that was participating in the folk festival caused a protest reaction that has been echoed by some international media. “We will not return again,” the foreign musicians stated indignantly.
