Like day and night in just a few months.
The pandemic and police action have reduced the number of vendors in Barcelona, to the point that images such as the esplanade of Paseo Joan de Borbó or the entrance to the Plaza Catalunya station converted into souks are practically forgotten.
When Ada Colau became mayor of Barcelona in 2015, the illegal sale became the perfect storm against the Commons.
The phenomenon served as an excuse to question the security policies of the new consistory.
On the one hand, merchants and neighbors protested the inaction of the agents.
On the other hand, the Guardia Urbana police themselves were suspicious of their new political bosses.
The agents did not fully trust the mayor's party, which criticized the local police, accused them of torture,
He asked the lawyers of the Guardia Urbana not to request the imprisonment of the street vendors who had injured agents and had even announced in the electoral program that the local police anti-riot unit would be abolished.
The
top manta
became a problem of coexistence and an occupation of public space by a group that exceeded 700 manteros.
Any movement by the police or the social services of the Consistory was a source of criticism both from rivals and from Colau's own voters.
To solve the problem there were several police stadiums.
There were moments of inaction by the agents, others in which the spaces were sprinkled with water to prevent the tablecloths from being placed.
There were also agreements between the City Council and the Mossos d'Esquadra for the regional police to place the anti-terrorist devices, precisely, in the places where the street vendors were, especially on Paseo Joan de Borbó.
The agents, armed to the teeth, managed to get the vendors to sell in other places.
The Consistory created a cooperative of street vendors to try to offer them a job opportunity.
Some trained as fishmongers, others designed clothing or worked as gatekeepers for events.
In other times there was no total lack of police coordination and on other occasions the Urban Guard took great care,
based on constant devices, in pursuing the 700 street vendors who were running through the city fleeing from the agents or confronting them.
Today little remains of the dozens of illegal vendors.
In fact, sources from the Guardia Urbana assure that there are no more than 30 active street vendors.
“The images that we can extract from the different subway cameras tell us that there are between 20 and 30 manteros.
There is no more and they are always the same.
We have achieved this thanks to continuous police pressure”, explain sources from the Barcelona local police.
Fines for vendors and latters for selling on public roads plummeted during the pandemic.
In 2020, the Urban Guard imposed 16,761 fines, 68.3% less than in 2019 (52,880).
The balance of this year's fines has not yet been made, but everything indicates that the figures for 2019 will take time to reach.
Before the pandemic, the pressure from street vendors was such that several entities of neighbors and merchants formed the Platform of People Affected by Top Manta.
One of the associations that took part was Amics de la Rambla.
Fermí Villar is the president of this entity that brings together businesses and residents of the most iconic promenade in Barcelona.
Villar assures that the top blanket phenomenon has been greatly reduced.
“The City Council has finally taken it seriously.
Now sometimes there are outbreaks of illegal markets in some parts of the Rambla but they quickly disperse.
Curiously, in other coastal municipalities there are manteros, but in Barcelona there are no top t-shirt blankets and other imitations.
Yes, there is an excess of sarongs, mojitos, magnets and souvenirs for one euro on the beach or in some tourist spots”.
Lamine Saar is a street vendor and spokesperson for the self-styled Popular Union of Street Vendors of Barcelona.
She acknowledges that the number of street vendors has been greatly reduced.
“The manteros are nomads and normally selling was not our first activity.
With the pandemic it stopped making sense to sell because there were no tourists.
Many of us went to collect scrap metal, others to the agricultural seasons”, she acknowledges.
Saar maintains that street vending has been hurt due to three factors: "the pandemic, police repression and the lack of tourists."
Even so, she does not agree with the Guàrdia Urbana that the reduction in street vendors is caused exclusively by police activity: “The repression has nothing to do with the rise or fall of vendors.
In fact, at the time with the most police pressure, the number of street vendors continued to rise.”
The leadership of the current Guàrdia Urbana does not deny that at some point there was confusion as to how to act against street vending, but they warn that the only way to eradicate the phenomenon has been through "continuous pressure."
The local police know that they do not have to lower their guard since the phenomenon can skyrocket with the expected arrival of tourists this summer.
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