The Sant Antoni neighborhood will activate a fixed security device this week in the vicinity of Ronda de Sant Pau with the presence of the Guàrdia Urbana, the Mossos d'Esquadra, and the National Police. The operation will extend until the early morning and will seek to prevent the installation of street vendors in one of the areas where commerce has been demanding police reinforcement for more than a year.
The intervention comes after months of complaints and incidents in a stretch where merchants report rising insecurity and place the most conflictive hours between five or six in the afternoon and two in the morning. The paradox they point out in the neighborhood is that the permanent patrolling they have been requesting for more than a year will not be implemented until now, when some businesses are already considering leaving.
The device will cover the period from the afternoon until two in the morning
The deployment will be concentrated on Ronda de Sant Pau and will be fixed during the hours of greatest pressure from street vending. Merchants maintain that this time frame coincides with the most intense presence of street vendors and with the episodes that most affect the daily activity of the businesses.
Jordi Arias, president of Sant Antoni Comerç, explained that in the area there is a "growing sense of insecurity". The commercial sector's request was to ensure a stable police presence precisely from mid-afternoon until late at night.
In this environment, street vending is not limited to the occupation of public space. Businesses link its expansion to fights, the presence of weapons, and criminal activities related to the sale of products or medicines.
Merchants warn that some businesses are already considering leaving the neighborhood
The demand for more surveillance is not new in Sant Antoni. For more than a year, commercial associations have requested permanent patrolling and now lament that the institutional response comes after months of incidents.
Some establishments have even considered leaving the neighborhood due to the impact of the situation on their daily lives. The complaint is not only focused on sales but also on the deterioration of coexistence in an area with strong commercial and neighborhood activity.
The entities of Sant Antoni defend the commercial and associative character of the neighborhood and hope that the operation will help to recover security and coexistence around the Sant Pau roundabout. The deployment that starts this week will keep agents on the ground until two in the morning, the period that merchants consider the most conflictive.