The two couples from the Urban Guard of Badalona who were on duty on the beaches this past weekend did not give the scope. Informational tasks began on Saturday following the beach use restrictions imposed by Mayor Xavier García Albiol in his last ban. A new ordinance that affects the coast and with which it aims to "order and civilize" the beaches.
The guards spent the day answering questions and warning users of the prohibitions. And despite the fact that the ban is written quite clearly, the use of the beach is so diverse that it supports different interpretations of what can and cannot be done. That is why this newspaper wanted to clarify some of them with the Urban Guard and the Consistory itself.
This is the point that generates the most interpretations. Probably the most important, because it prohibits "the installation of tents, awnings, parasols 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 as if it were right now the days of summer loading the legendary SM bus with the camping table, the chairs, the portable cooler with ice, the parasol from which we hung a clipping of sheet to one side to provide better shade, the drink and lunch boxes with breaded loin, peppers and potato omelette. My parents and their four children enjoyed the most of the day at the beach. We lived in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, but we were more from Montgat beach than Badalona beach, because my father liked to go in a few meters and fish with his lungs.
"There are many families who cannot afford a snack bar menu. Not even the one where I work. I don't think it's good that they want to ban family lunch or dinner for life on the beach." This is what the head chef of one of the bars at the foot of the sand at Playa de l'Estació says, as he prepares the menu of the day.
A few meters from the Pont del Petroli, a group of lifelong residents, many from the same block as the mother of journalist and writer Jorge Javier Vázquez, are in favor of the measure. "What couldn't be is that to get from home to the sand I have to dodge so many tents and marquees, that it looked 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, what really bothered them yesterday was the sorry state of the water. Almost none of them could bathe. So four drops fall, the collector overflows and the beach is filled with filth that makes it impossible to swim there. And with the restrictions and no water in the showers, many people returned home as dry as they had arrived.
Badalona City Council tries to answer questions. As for the collector, remember that this week the mayor will travel to Brussels to get the 30 million euros it costs to build three rainwater tanks to prevent the collector from collapsing during storms.
And as for the prohibitions, they assure that the urban guards will "respect" family tables that are "tidy" and even small tents that, although not diaphanous, are used to protect the creatures 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 his attitude, despite the requirements of the Urban Guard of Badalona or is a blatant repeat offender.
