Merchants at two municipal markets in Madrid, La Cebada (in La Latina) and Guillermo de Osma (in Arganzuela) denounce illegal payments by private management, rental rates outside the norm, parties private spaces inside the establishments, irregular management of parking spaces, lack of security and fire protocols.
A series of irregularities that have been brought to the attention of the José Luis Martínez-Almeida City Council, according to the documents to which EL PAÍS has had access.
The merchants blame the authorities for the institutional abandonment of some premises that they must supervise.
For its part, the Government area in charge of controlling these two concessions has alleged that “the City Council whenever it receives a complaint about the management of the markets, carries out the appropriate administrative actions to determine if there was any type of violation of the markets ordinance or non-compliance.”
“In all cases, the appropriate procedures have been carried out and acted in accordance with current regulations,” responded a press spokesperson for the Economy Ministry.
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EL PAÍS has receipts for IBI refunds in cash that merchants never had to pay, since for this type of establishments the subsidy is 95%;
emails;
contracts, rental invoices and other expenses and the testimony of four sellers, two of whom preferred not to give their names.
The management of the Barley Market has not responded to this newspaper's questions.
“The Madrid City Council has completely ignored the Municipal Markets,” denounces the PSOE councilor for Economy and Finance in the Consistory, Enma López, shortly before transferring these complaints to a debate in the Commission.
“The market regulatory ordinance expressly says that it is the City Council that has the powers to supervise these concessions.
Powers that the Madrid City Council does not execute.
You just have to look at the number of sanctions that have been imposed in recent years.
"That barely exceed a dozen and always at the request of the dealers," she added.
The merchants are dissatisfied and are waiting for answers from the City Council.
Jesús Martín González, who has been managing an ecological bar-restaurant in the La Cebada Market for three years, takes out of a suitcase a mountain of papers that, he assures, are evidence of all his complaints about the management of the Madrid Cooperative Society of Market Merchants of Barley (CO.ME.CE).
In this La Latina market there are 176 positions, of which 21 are vacant, according to PSOE data.
Their main complaint is how merchants are returned what corresponds to them from the 95% IBI bonus that this space has.
Martín explains that they pay the tax, month by month, within the occupancy rate;
then each year they expect the 95% return.
But, he denounces, the figures are not clear.
“We do not know the total amount the Market must return or how they calculate how much corresponds to each position,” says Martín, who shows a series of emails that he has sent to management asking for explanations, invoices and IBI payments.
The accounts, he claims, are never clear.
In one of the invoices to which EL PAÍS has had access, the return of the IBI is not explicitly recorded to the merchant.
Only two items appear such as INCOME TO CTA and TO CTA which, he later learned, corresponded to two returns.
Then, in May, he has another one that appears as INCOME RSTO IBII.
For other merchants, the refund is made through other means, cash, compensation on invoices or whatever is agreed upon.
However, there is no access, another merchant denounces, to the general accounts.
The City Council, for its part, ensures that the return of the IBI complies with the norm.
“The return procedure (cash, transfer, postal order…) is determined by the concessionaire, and it is not the responsibility of the City Council to verify by what means it was carried out,” the council responded to this newspaper.
But Martín still suspects that something is not right.
His account for 2022 and 2023 shows as cash income an amount that was actually a bank deposit made by Martín to the market.
There is also no invoice for the parking fee for his car.
He paid 79.39 euros in July and none of that appears in the accounts he has with the market.
“Where was that money?” he asks.
And he keeps listing complaints: “There is no fire safety, there are no smoke detectors, there are no sprinklers.
And you have to see how the emergency stairs are,” he says and shows how the exits are blocked by garbage containers.
EL PAÍS has tried to communicate with the management of the Cooperative Society, but has not received a response.
About 2.5 kilometers to the south, Giorgia Cacciotti's family lives their own drama in the Guillermo de Osma market, located in the Arganzuela district and which has 59 stalls (28 vacancies) and is managed by Rya Residencias.
It is Sunday afternoon and the market's gastronomic area, with only three of its seven stalls in operation, is practically deserted.
One of those three gastronomic establishments is La Pasteria 55, a small Italian restaurant, whose contract with Rya Residencias is signed by Cacciotti's husband.
She, for her part, appears as a family collaborator.
Except for a group of customers who made a reservation and who are laughing at the back of the dining room, built last year, there is no one.
“We have not found any form of collaboration in advertising and market dissemination,” says Cacciotti.
“We print the brochures, the posters, the flyers and distribute them throughout the neighborhood.
We form our own clientele.”
He adds that what they have achieved has been by contacting and putting pressure on the City Council.
“Seeing that they [Management] always say no, we asked for help and when the Commerce Office came we got the Dining Room, the web portal and the social networks...,” he says.
But that's just one of the problems.
The most serious is that Caccioti assures that her husband has paid more than his share in the last five years to occupy that premises.
The minimum annual transfer fee, according to the City Council's 2015 specifications, was 755.57 euros;
but for the Italian location they have paid up to 2,740 euros per year.
“In April of last year we found out that we were paying more than what was expected in the specifications,” denounces Caccioti.
The explanation given to the City Council by Rya Residencias, the private company that has the concession of the Market for 25 years, is that there is an extra transfer price for the amortization of the installation of smoke extraction for the activity of the premises that cost more of 58,000 euros.
The City Council has responded to this newspaper that the concessionaire "can charge users, in addition to the rates, the impact of expenses derived from the use of common facilities or extension of market hours."
He clarifies that this price is private “and is agreed upon between the parties.”
But Caciotti assures that this was never explained to him and provides the contract that he signed in 2019, which indicates a transfer price of 228.38 euros per month – which in one year is 2,740 euros – without any explanation that there There is an extra payment for the installation of the smoke extractor nor when that investment is fully amortized.
“In April we requested information and transparency through the City Council.
But until today we have not obtained any clear answer,” he denounces.
They also do not have access to the market's expense books, to know what the 400 euros they pay month after month in common expenses are invested in.
The gastronomic establishments are still waiting for the City Council to intervene.
EL PAÍS contacted Rya Residencias to find out their version and assured that they would not comment on anything that had to do with La Pasteria 55. The dispute between the Italian restaurant and the Mercado has reached such a point that Cacciotti feared that this February they would not be given the extension of the contract.
Finally, as the City Council's Economy Area has recognized, the Commerce Directorate mediated and ensured that the extension was maintained.
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