The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The explosion of clandestine parties: another phenomenon of the pandemic

2021-05-13T23:33:57.748Z


Every weekend illegal encounters are disrupted. Why is it so hard to stop the night? Is there police complicity?


Natalia Iocco

05/10/2021 4:59 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Police

Updated 05/10/2021 17:00

It's Saturday and bars have long closed their doors due to restrictions to contain the second wave of coronavirus in Argentina.

Shopping centers are still crowded with people who made the most of the hours allowed to circulate on the streets.

While everyone is rushing to get home before "curfew" and something else happens on social media, another plan is cooking.

"Tartu" does not use his real name on his Instagram account, but from 20:00 he opens a box of questions in his stories: "

What's going on today?

"

That is the gateway to word of mouth that unfolds a scenario in which too much is invested to control and that seems to find no limit. 

"Tartu" publishes on his profile that he is 20 years old.

Like him, hundreds of other young people evade the restrictions linked to the pandemic and can

not bear the idea of ​​spending "another year locked up

.

"

Young people who defy the pandemic on social media and participate in clandestine parties.

By five in the morning they are already making fun using the tag that Instagram designed to raise awareness about prevention measures and health regulations.

A "

Stay at Home

"

logo

that was popularized in photos of sourdough breads or any home achievement during compulsory preventive social isolation.

His "

I'm staying home

" frames a photo with eight friends at a clandestine party.

In the background you can see a closed environment, something like a house or a shed with music, lights and alcohol.

In the next one he insists on irony and is shown dancing with a drink in hand: "

Damn pandemic that won't let me out of the fuck,

" he challenges.

Ignacio is 20 years old and "

the clandes

" are part of his "new normal".

"I work in a bar so the time allowed to circulate, I'm working. If I want to go out, it's that way. I went to some parties, but most of us are friends who say '

we get together

' and we go to a house. many more, now it is quiet, "he tells

Clarín

.

v 1.5

The AMBA and the second wave

New cases of coronavirus in the city and province of Buenos Aires have grown at a slow pace, but sustained since the beginning of March.

»Cases per day per million inhab.

7 day average

Source:

Ministry of Health

Infographic:

Clarín

The young man lives alone and says he understands the restrictions, although it

does not seem "bad" to meet up or is afraid of contagion

.

"I don't go out every weekend either," he excuses himself.

The Buenos Aires Police and the City Police disrupt several of these parties every weekend.

The news is repeated every weekend.

Also in the interior of the country.

In the Province they assure that "

there are much fewer than at the end of 2020

" and that the situation is controlled with "preventive patrols in the areas where this type of encounter frequently occurs", although they say they have statistics on the phenomenon.

By the logic of the Conurbano, and unlike what happens in the City, the parties are with fewer people involved and not for commercial purposes.

They are repeated in houses, fifths or spaces with

10, 20 and up to 40 people

The municipalities had to go out to do their own controls with inspectors.

There are telephone lines so that neighbors can report and collaborate with the Police.

As they coincide in the North, South and West areas, by October of last year there were parties in pools or villas, with paid admission and even combis that transported adolescents to the areas of Moreno, Vicente López, Florencio Varela and San Vicente, among other points. "This dynamic no longer exists," they stated in Minister Sergio Berni's portfolio. But the concrete thing is that clandestine parties spread everywhere.

"The new dynamic makes it

very difficult to control

, because there they call us for a party and it is a family of cohabitants listening to loud music. And we miss going to another house where there are 5 or 10 children. It is necessary that there is individual responsibility, because

we cannot have a patrol in each house

", complains a commissioner of the West.

"With the pandemic, we had to become the enforcement authority to enforce the measures established by the National and Provincial government," says Alejandra Cordeiro, secretary of the Quilmes Control and Supervision Agency.

Young people who defy the pandemic on social media and participate in clandestine parties.

In his district they created a hotline so that neighbors can report clandestine parties by phone and a "caravan" system with inspectors, police and traffic personnel.

"We had around 400 complaints, and of that total 40 were clandestine parties with many people, between December and April," he counted.

In the North Zone a new problem arose to control:

the gated communities or neighborhoods

.

There, complaints not only depend on the neighbors, but also on the internal control of the private security agency because there are no "preventive patrols."

On Saturday, May 1, Víctor César Chirico, a 49-year-old contractor sentenced to three years in suspended prison for a landslide that killed six workers, organized a birthday party for 70 people at El Yacht, in Nordelta.

Clandestine party in a private neighborhood of Nordelta: four detainees. There was the former Boca Clemente Rodríguez.

"When an irregular situation or a breach of a national, provincial or municipal regulation by an owner is detected, the security company or the district administration contact and warn the neighbor about the breach. That happened on Saturday afternoon at the Yacht party ", indicated the authorities of the Nordelta Neighborhood Association (AVN).

Given the lack of response, they notified the police and accompanied her to the place.

There were three detainees

.

"It is something of every weekend. They know it in the police station and private security. If they let 15 cars that are advertised to go to a single house, they do not detect that something is happening that is not allowed? Is there a

cover-up of the Police

because I got tired of calling 911 and nothing happens ", tells Clarín Nora G. a neighbor of a private neighborhood in Canning, in Ezeiza.

The city

v1.7 0421

Coronavirus in CABA

Tap to explore the data

Source:

CovidStats.com.ar based on Open Data from the Ministry of Health, CABA

Infographic:

Clarín

In the City of Buenos Aires the dynamics is different: bars, hotels, restaurants and rented houses are chosen for the meetings.

They work with complaints, but also with the monitoring of flyers or the dissemination of the parties on social networks.

Between March 27 and April 25, according to official data provided by the Security area of ​​the City of Buenos Aires, they thwarted

more than 12 clandestine parties

in hotels, hostels, bars, gastronomic establishments and some in private homes.

In total, there are 1,281 attendees notified of a violation of article 205 of the Penal Code.

There were also drug kidnappings and other municipal breaches.

In some of the events there were more than 400 people.

This weekend, for example, they closed the local La Morocha Garden Bar, a few meters from the Planetarium, in Palermo.

Facundo Del Campo is the owner of Carnal, a cultural bar on 5500 Niceto Vega Street, in Palermo Hollywood.

His business was closed on Thursday in an operation that he questions.

"I am against everything clandestine, everything that is a danger to people or that goes against regulations. That is why for more than 20 years

in my bar we have respected all regulations,

" he gets angry in dialogue with Clarín.

According to the complaint, his location was part of an "excessive" and "wrong" operation.

Sources from the City of Buenos Aires spread that "the team of the Office of Operational Coordination of the Body of Judicial Investigations discovered a massive event, in a closed place, without ventilation and with the participants without masks, violating all current protocol against the coronavirus" .

Alcohol, present at parties.

They detected it - they indicated - through an advertisement in networks of a "Rooftop Home Sessions", with music on the terrace of the place. The owner states: "They arrived at 6:45 p.m., we had already cleared the tables on the sidewalk because we had to close. They notified 40 people, of which 15 were employees and the band that wanted to charge.

The customers were on the terrace, at tables It was not a party.

But my brother and I were detained, we spent the night in jail and he missed the birth of his son for something totally disproportionate. "

For Facundo, "the rules are not clear."

"The protocols change all the time and we try to comply with everything but these things happen that cannot be understood.

We are surviving

after a year of debts and juggling, reinventing ourselves to survive and this happens to us. It is perfect that there are controls, but with responsibility and clear rules, "he insists.

In all the country

The closure of clandestine parties is not limited to the AMBA, but is repeated throughout the country.

This weekend they evicted 400 people from a party organized by councilman Luis Correa, from Alderetes, in the Cruz Alta department in Tucumán.

They were celebrating their daughter's 15th birthday.

In Santa Fe, during the first month of restrictions, the authorities thwarted 25 clandestine parties.

As each province has its own regulations according to the "health traffic light", they also established the general prohibition of driving between 0 and 6 and traffic with cars and motorcycles from 9 pm.

In Mendoza the bars are open until midnight.

On May 1, they disrupted a recital in Valle de Uco for 80 people and a party in a beer garden in Maipú with 300 people.

In Córdoba, the Ministry of Security established, in addition to police controls and criminal cases for infringement, fines to punish those who fail to comply with the regulations linked to the pandemic, including clandestine parties.

According to

Clarín

, they have already applied

54,300 fines ranging from 3,000 to 500,000 pesos

.

It includes those who do not wear a mask, exceed the capacity in gastronomic shops or hold unauthorized meetings. 

In Mendoza, confirmed provincial sources consulted by this newspaper, most of the clandestine parties take place in rural areas.

According to the authorities, they destroy "between two or four per weekend", but with "no more than 50 people."

"There is very little that is given, for various reasons, including that it is allowed to meet in bars until midnight. In summer we have had more cases, but it has decreased notably," said Néstor Majul, undersecretary of Security of the Province.

With information from correspondents of Rosario and Mendoza.

EMJ


Look also

They denounced that a Tucumán councilor organized a party for 400 people

Clandestine parties in the suburbs: in a country, more than 100 people fled through the tennis courts

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-05-13

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-02T08:14:01.613Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.