- Economic crisis. Madrid's nightlife closes this weekend in protest of the "disproportionate" measures of the regional government
- Hospitality. Two months waiting to obtain the license for a terrace in Madrid: "I have thrown away a brutal investment"
If the summer nights in Madrid were already less busy than usual, last night was not to believe. It seemed that for a few hours the capital had been transformed into another city where nightlife was practically nil : few open terraces, no people in the streets and silence. During this weekend, the businessmen of the sector decided to voluntarily close their doors as a protest against the measures decreed by the Community. According to the Platform for Leisure, more than 90% of the stores did not open on the first day and in areas such as Malasaña or Chueca, "except for some exceptions", 100% did.
" Even if all the premises were open, there would be no one either . People are at home, in their neighborhood or on vacation," says Luis Bañares, owner of the Poca Vergüenza cocktail bar on Ferrer Street, one of the establishments he maintained your activity. "We are open, but there is almost no movement, no one passes by," he explains.
Bañares assures that in these last two weeks the demand has been reduced much more than before . The reason: the summer, the few people who stay in Madrid, but especially the Covid-19 virus and the measures imposed by the Autonomous Community . "We are only billing 20% . At the same time before we were billing 50%", he says, and warns that if the situation continues as it is, it will not be able to be tolerated.
In more than half an hour no one entered the premises , as EL MUNDO could verify. Inside the establishment three couples had a drink. Two of them came out while we talked with Luis. Nor were people walking down the street. It was 11:45 p.m.
The music of the 80s and 90s in a city where silence has never been so present drew the attention of the few passers-by who walked through Malasaña. It came out of the Super Pop Bar , by David Martínez de la Torre. "I support my teammates, but I have to open up. I have not been able to afford to close and put the little sign on the door because for me what comes in is welcome, " says Martínez. Throughout the night of Friday, August 7, he had six clients, this Saturday he got a reservation of eight people. Last week no one entered his premises. "We are like May water! I need to cover my expenses and much more after being closed for three months in the middle of winter and spring, when it is our high season. This is a disaster, " he laments.
David reopened his premises three weeks ago, trusting that the situation would improve, but then came the new measures imposed by the regional government with which, in his opinion, "they have been grossly wrong." Among them, the limit of groups to a maximum of 10 people, the closure of the establishments at 1.30 am, the non-admission of customers after one and the management of an access record of all the people.
"I understand that the government has to ensure that there are no outbreaks, but bars, discos and the rest are being demonized daily, no, " Martínez complains. For him, the real problem is in the private parties in private homes and in the bottles. "There, the situation is uncontrollable," he says and adds that the virus is not only in the hotel industry, "it is at the home of those who have it, it is in the pool, it is in the supermarket, it is in the bottles, it is in all parts ".
The same opinion is shared by Bañares, who adds that another of the drawbacks is that the " measures are not clear ", for example, regarding the registration of customers. " People distrust because the Community has not said anything about how the documents have to be," he says. It points out that people feel that this is an invasive, disproportionate mechanism and that it is not well planned. "You can't understand that suddenly at 6:00 p.m. you go to a terrace and nothing happens and yet you come to a cocktail bar and have to sign a form." Although most end up registering without major problem, the businessman reports that this week he had to kick out a boy who did not want to register and "got in a very bad way."
Gonzalo Revuelta and Déxter Robles have a drink in a bar. Although they came together, they both feel estranged from each other. They have their masks on their arms and at all times they look attentively towards the door. "We have been on a terrace and then we went to a closed bar with few people. When we saw that more people began to enter, we left, " says Revuelta. Although the two go out to have fun at night, now they prefer the terraces because they feel that they are places where there is more separation between the tables, they are more controlled places and in the open air. " I'm afraid of getting infected, I don't doubt it. And although I don't like the security measures, I know they are necessary. What is going to be done!" Says Robles.
Now, with the bars and discos closed, one of the biggest concerns for the authorities is the bottles , since they can become a major source of infections . Between March and July 2020, 3,505 complaints were filed in the Centro district for this reason . However, this weekend the panorama in the squares was not of greater movement.
At 12:30 pm, on the benches of Plaza San Idelfonso, few couples were talking and laughing. There were no beers in his hands, just soda and water . The one that until a few days ago was one of the places where the bottles burst into the nights, yesterday looked calm. In the Plaza del 2 de Mayo the situation was similar. A Municipal Police van remained parked in the middle of the place throughout the night to ensure that the law was not violated .
In Chueca, in the Plaza de Pedro Zerolo, there were not only couples to be seen, but the groups barely numbered four people. The street vendors of beer cans offered each person they found the drink, but in more than twenty minutes they could not sell any .
At one o'clock in the morning there were few people left on the streets. The virus has also killed the nights of Madrid .
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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