"500 euros! Who says 600?, 650!, 700!, does anyone give more? Sold lot 27 to the man in the gray shirt”. While on the ground floor of Les Encants the shopkeepers go to the auctions early in the morning, upstairs the owners of the stalls raise the blinds and assemble the goods before opening to the public. Ten years after the opening of the building, the influx has grown to 60,000 weekly visits compared to the 90,000 at the previous location in the upper part of Les Glòries. Having just opened, it received 150,000, more than twice as many as today, according to Barcelona City Council figures. Those affected are the stall holders of the upper level, who are the ones who pay the most fees.
Garafi has been selling old lamps and telephones on the market for more than 50 years. When the City Council presented the proposal to move the market to another location, which ensured protection from rain and sun, it did not hesitate to accept the offer. For five years he paid a monthly fee of 230 euros to get the new stop at Els Encants. "I was excited because it would be like having my own place, until I saw that up here, more precisely in the last corridor, people don't go near it", he explains. He joins the opinion of other traders and puts trade on hold, because "it's no longer worth keeping".
"Choose? No, they were rather assigned by title, and it's our turn to be antique dealers here," says José Robles, another vendor in the corridor. "There is more competition on the ground floor, but they cannot guarantee that what they sell works, I can", he adds. It is one of the daily dynamics that makes it easy for the market to function, despite the fact that some traders perceive an unequal situation compared to the stalls on the ground floor, especially in terms of payment to the Administration.
The contributions that the 275 commercial stalls have to pay to the City Council, regulated by the Fiscal Ordinance on Markets, levy the use rate of the spaces at 5.55 euros per month per square meter. "These are prices well below the costs of a store in a shopping center or a commercial lease", argues Genís Arnàs Páez, head of markets at the Municipal Institute of Markets. The calculation of expenses for a stop of 8 square meters is equivalent to a rate of 44.4 euros as a usage fee. To the figure, you must add the garbage fee, the proportional fee for light, cleaning and maintenance, which totals a final 115 euros. "This month I will pay 348 euros", points out Garafi. "Even if having a place open to the public on the street is more expensive, for the profits we have it's a lot", adds José Robles, who has a bigger stall. "Before they saw an old lamp and valued it for the details, now they just want it to be cheap, but when they come to sell they want to be paid a fortune for the history they have", says Garafi, who has resorted to sketching the majority of 'artifacts to sell the parts as spare parts and get more profit.
On the contrary, the mirrored aluminum and zinc ceiling of the market reflects the anthill of people in the tender area. "You can find treasures there, but you have to be one of the first to come", says Pepe Ruiz, a collector of Civil War documents, who goes to check the auctioned lots every week at least two days, after the night shift as a nurse, instead of returning to his home in Cornellà to rest. Nearby, a woman searches for pieces of glitter. "I'm getting married and I'm looking for things to decorate with," he says. He emigrated from Ukraine just over a year ago and the market is a place that allows him to find what he needs without the need to speak Spanish.
In the area below, many people transit and sales are safe. Brahim Granni has been participating in the market for twelve years and nothing has changed for him. "Today I got a lot for 1,000 euros at the auction and I think I will be able to get 3,000 sweet potatoes from it when the day is over", he says. Granni sells to curious regulars and fixed customers, even through WhatsApp. Fifteen minutes before acquiring the genres, he has recovered half of the investment and keeps more than half of the merchandise.
On the days of the auction, only the owners of the plots have the right to enter genres and must pay a fee of 2.5% of the auctioned value as a single fee. More than a hundred buyers (tenders) are registered in the market and able to compete for the 39 lots, to stay and sell the lot they have acquired, with the premise that when the day ends the plot must be empty.
"The ground floor is attractive because you never know what you will find and every day we open there is new merchandise", argues Granni, who relates why this area is more attractive than the upper floor. Over time, Brahim has learned what works and what doesn't within a batch. For someone outside the rubric, lots can mean pure rubbish, but the shopkeepers know that there is always someone who will be interested in one of the objects.
