02/22/2021 17:44
Clarín.com
Zonal
Updated 02/22/2021 5:44 PM
At dawn on Sunday, the municipality of Merlo and the Buenos Aires Police
disrupted a clandestine "VIP" party
that was taking place in the events room of the "Ituzaingó Golf Club" property in the town of San Antonio de Padua.
As reported by the Commune, there were more than 600 attendees.
The case joins
other similar events that were previously detected in Greater Buenos Aires, in many cases after the
alerts that neighbors send to 911 or the municipalities.
But beyond that kind of social control, the trend does not stop and despite the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, and the high fines and possible criminal consequences that the organizers may suffer, the parties are repeated.
In a quick review, from the beginning of Spring there were similar situations in places like González Catán (La Matanza), Moreno, San Fernando, Escobar, Pilar, Temperley, Ingeniero Budge, Monte Grande, Canning, Longchamps, Ezeiza and Guernica, where also a young woman was shot dead.
Last weekend, as in Merlo, there was a case in the Río de la Plata, near San Isidro, in which the Prefecture intervened.
As reported by the authorities, the call for the event in the San Antonio de Padua club was given, as in most of these cases, through WhatsApp groups, where it was reported that the party had a price of
4,000 pesos per person, and that also included an open bar
with top brand alcoholic beverages.
That is another common characteristic: the high price of access tickets.
Top-brand alcoholic beverages, seized at the weekend event in Merlo, which offered "open bar" in exchange for a ticket of 4 thousand pesos:
The party in Merlo was deactivated
in the early hours of Sunday
after repeated complaints from neighbors.
The Undersecretary of General Inspection of the municipality and also the Security, Traffic and Delegations areas participated in the operation, in coordination with the Buenos Aires Police.
Endless state resources
to prevent what, in the context of the pandemic, constitutes a serious epidemiological risk.
During the operation
, "large amounts" of alcohol were seized,
the attendees were notified of a violation of article 205 of the Penal Code, and
the organizers of the event were arrested
.
Then they closed the place, which, according to what emerged, was managed by a concession that began operating a few weeks ago in a place that had been
closed and inactive since before the coronavirus.
The party at the San Antonio de Padua Golf Club was disrupted by municipal agents and the Buenos Aires police: the organizers were delayed.
The article of the Penal Code that was violated on this occasion, as in all the others, establishes
penalties of six months to two years in prison
for those who "violate the measures adopted by the competent authorities to prevent the introduction or spread of an epidemic." .
These are amounts that are not made effective, except for aggravating factors or antecedents.
After the important procedure that was carried out from the alert of the neighbors, the mayor of Merlo, Gustavo Menéndez, declared: "In the face of these irresponsible actions
we are going to act with the full weight of the law
. We must combat the negligence of some, to take care of the majority of Merlenses against the pandemic ".
In the case, the UFI N ° 5 of the Morón judicial department intervenes.
Beyond the above-average convocation level, Merlo's episode is far from unique.
The clandestine parties is really a problem that there were already records in September, but that increased
in the weeks before the
end of the year parties and that continues during a peculiar summer, with holidays adapted to the health crisis.
In this context, in December the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security reported that it had already received around 2,000 complaints from neighbors for illegal parties throughout the province.
Some of them began to occur
frequently in the suburbs.
In Temperley they closed a clandestine event in which there were more than 1,200 people.
In the southern zone, for example, between the end of November and the first days of the following month they had already disrupted massive events in only at least six different locations.
One of them, carried out in Temperley, attracted special attention due to the level of deployment it had acquired.
There were 1,200 people in the place.
Long before,
almost precursorly
, an incredible illegal party had broken down in a country house in González Catán, in the south of the extensive municipality of La Matanza.
There,
in the run-up to Spring Day
, the police found several surprises: there were high-end cars parked at the door, clandestine gaming tables, 40 thousand pesos in cash and, in addition, two policemen participating in the event, which organized on September 20.
At that time
the quarantine was still strict
and clandestine parties, an exception.
But over time they became more general, as the end of the year and the subsequent holiday season approached.
At the end of November, for example, a record of convocation was set when in the municipality of Moreno they intervened in a party where there were 1,800 attendees.
At the end of December, when the Nation allowed private events with up to 200 attendees, the provincial government decided not to implement it in Buenos Aires, something that among the GBA mayors was seen with some relief, despite the fact that some speculated that "opening the tap "would allow at least to
discourage out-of-control
and underground events.
Beyond official measures, and
the efforts
of the municipalities
to detect calls on the networks
, the increase in fines and the permanent awareness both not to carry them out and to report them, the festivities continued to be repeated in the months of 2021.
In the last weekend of January, for example, while the
peak of cases in the summer
still generated concern, and the control operations were repeated on the beaches of the Atlantic coast, in the northern part of the GBA an important police procedure dismantled a
Clandestine "VIP" party
, organized in an event hall in Pilar, which was attended by about 400 people after paying no less than 6 thousand pesos for admission.
In the neighboring district of Escobar, a few days later, a similar but more "accessible" event was held in a house in the town of Maquinista Savio, where after a neighborhood complaint the Police not only ruined the event.
The operation took place at 3 in the morning on a Sunday and
ended in
a rampage, as there was a shootout between the troops and
a dangerous fugitive criminal
who was at the scene and
was killed
.
He had a 32 caliber revolver and a “tumbera” weapon, sources from the investigation reported at the time.
That same weekend.
but in San Fernando, also in the North Zone, they closed three events with more than 180 people.
They were made in houses and one, even, in the middle of the street.
Once again, calls from neighbors led to the operations.
Florencia Belén Lischinsky, 24, was shot at a clandestine party in Guernica and he died on January 6, after almost a week with brain death.
In the South zone another clandestine party had a
tragic result.
It was in Guernica, where, at dawn on January 30, Florencia Belén Lischinsky, a 24-year-old neighbor of Glew, was shot with a firearm and died days later.
The "meeting" was organized in a private house on San Roque Avenue and the victim was accompanied by his partner, who had an argument with another person, and left the place to return later with a weapon that he had in the car.
It was learned that he had a struggle with someone and the shot that ended the life of Florencia escaped, who died on Saturday 6 at the Lomas Polyclinic, after almost a week with brain death.
Police officers at the Guernica home where the illegal party took place in which Florencia, 24, was shot in the middle of a fight between her partner and another person.
The last weekend of February, meanwhile, the massive Merlo party was not the only one detected by the authorities.
In the northern zone, the Prefecture interrupted an illegal event aboard a yacht and several other boats in the Angila stream, near the Río de la Plata, at the height of San Isidro.
As reported, in the largest ship there were 14 people who did not keep social distance or the most minimal precautionary measures;
while more people participated in the party from boats that surrounded the yacht.
Look also
A clandestine party in the Conurbano ended with bullets: a dead man with a tumbera weapon
Video: they organized mega clandestine parties in Pilar and charged $ 6,000 per entrance
