Daniel Somolinos Madrid
Madrid
Updated Wednesday, March 13, 2024-00:05
"It made you want to die. Or go very far away. Nobody knows what it's like to endure,
night after night, noises, screams and brawls
... It was inhuman."
A forceful blow against irregular nightlife thanks to
the protests and neighborhood outcry in Puente de Vallecas
.
With the arrival of Ángel Niño as president councilor to this district, an avalanche of requests and complaints once again piled up on his table.
Residents who, fed up with a perennial problem, conveyed their concern and alarm about "not being able to rest" due to the noise and atmosphere generated by certain nightclubs.
After identifying the problem, in September 2023, we began working with the Municipal Police and Activities Agency to
review compliance with licenses, capacity, schedules, noise levels
... In total, five locations have been closed, as reported. to this newspaper from the Madrid City Council: Paris Sisha Lounge (C/ Monte Perdido, 69);
Luxury Hookah Lounge (C/ Peña Gorbea, 14);
FlowRD (C/ Carlos Martín Álvarez, 62);
D'Urban Bar (C/ Martínez de la Riva, 50);
and El Bochinche (Peña Gorbea, 5).
The FlowRD nightclub, yesterday, closed after being sealed.F.
DAY OF VIVAR
Added to this quintet of cessations is the stoppage of works not subject to a license at another establishment that was preparing to open to the public.
But all of these will not, very predictably, be the only ones to lower the blinds.
According to what EL MUNDO has learned,
up to 14 new stores could end their activity
soon.
The idea is to "continue regularizing the Vallecas premises", although it will not be easy.
Some of them
are haunted by an aura of violence
as they have, among their clients, members of the so-called Latin gangs.
According to residents, the attendees of these pubs, most of them from South and Central America, make the surroundings their own when night falls.
"Vallecas
is turning into a ghetto
. Look at the Boulevard itself, before it was a quiet little square, but these people started taking it over to make bottles and create a ruckus...
It's gone to waste. It's even dangerous
," Raúl said. who has spent his entire life in this neighborhood.
A young man, with a machete in one hand and a bottle in the other, walks between these clubs looking for someone.EM
To the noise and lack of rest, residents add problems of coexistence and safety.
Some of these clubs appear in the newspaper archive, in the events pages, because they have seen a multitude of brawls at their doors, some involving firearms.
A few months ago, on Carlos Martín Álvarez Street - one where the most fights, screams and noise occur -, some videos were recorded of a fight between Latin gangs that
was settled with bottles flying, blood and some inert body in the ground
waiting for the arrival of Emergencies.
Some neighbors, like Sara, show this newspaper other videos that they recorded themselves.
In them you can see
a young man, with a machete in one hand and a bottle in the other,
vehemently searching for someone.
Although the worst night was the one in which he heard a couple of shots: "I looked out the window and there was a person, bleeding, on the floor... We can't take it anymore. We have three bars together, we call it
the triangle of the death
".
Sara has the "bad fortune" of living two floors above one of these establishments, and although the objects on the shelves do not move like her downstairs neighbor - due to the vibration that comes from the joint - she admits that she can't take it anymore. : "They have turned Vallecas into shit... We bought the house a few years ago,
but we are already considering selling it
. And we love the neighborhood, its people... but we are starting to go crazy, with thoughts that
make us It's even scary that they will cross our minds.
And all because we don't rest."
This Vallecano woman also evokes the confrontations she has had with the drunk customers of these nightclubs.
"They have even thrown bottles at our windows...", he says,
and all for reproaching them for not urinating next to his doorway:
"I can't keep quiet anymore. I yell at them to go pee in the bathroom, but they don't. take it the wrong way... They are not civilized."
She is not the only one who is going through this bad experience.
Agustina confesses that she "finds it
impossible to fall asleep, not even with lexatines
."
And others, more belligerent, fantasize about a more radical solution: "Do you remember the nightclubs that burned down in Murcia? Well, I wouldn't mind if the same thing happened here.
No injuries or deaths
, but for this martyrdom to end once and for all. My "My husband tells me to say things, I say things, but I can't take it anymore."
In Madrid, anyone can start an activity of this type if they present a responsible declaration,
functioning from that moment
until they receive a resolution, favorable or not, from the City Council.
Before, when it was denied - which led to the cessation of activity -, the owners had it very easy to haggle over the legislation: they presented another responsible declaration
with the name of a new owner and that's it
, the administrative timer returned to zero, leaving the closure. invalidated.
This generated notable frustration among both neighbors and officials and the Municipal Police.
Now the ordinance has been modified and, once the premises are sealed, it will not be able to reopen
until it has the green light from the Madrid City Council
.
"From the District Board we monitor all nightlife venues because we cannot and should not allow establishments to exist that do not comply with security measures or acoustic quality protection. We want to
guarantee neighborhood rest
," he concludes, to this newspaper. , councilor Ángel Niño.