The Madrid City Council approved the modification of the Municipal Markets Ordinance on October 29, thanks to the absolute majority of the Popular Party in the plenary session. The Government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida defended the changes to the norm approved in 2010 with three main arguments: flexibility, autonomy in management and adaptation to new consumer habits. “There is room for recreational and social activities such as parades and concerts, as well as tastings and tastings, which can occupy up to 50% of the common space,” the City Council highlighted in a press release sent to the media.
The new legislation increases the maximum surface area for food tasting or consumption both in the premises (up to 25% of the sales room area or 30 square meters) and in the common areas (50% of the total area of the premises). common areas, with a maximum of 25 square meters for each hospitality or business establishment with tasting in the market). Musical performances, presentations, parades and other recreational and educational activities may be held, as well as product promotion and responsible consumption, tastings, vending machines and ATMs.
Hours are extended in the same way, “always adjusted to the general interest of the market and current regulations” according to the municipal Executive. The ordinance now allows contracts for the transfer of the right to use the premises, with a maximum duration of one year, in addition to facilitating entry into the new concessions for merchants who had been developing their activity in the market. The transfer of the exercise of the activity without transfer of ownership of the premises is also prohibited. Finally, the installation of infrastructure for the electric charging of vehicles in the parking area and areas for storing bicycles and zero-emission urban mobility vehicles is facilitated.
Two major debates: direct or indirect management and tourism or proximity model
The municipal groups of Más Madrid and PSOE voted against, after their respective amendments to all and most of their partial amendments were rejected. “We amend the model,” says the deputy spokesperson for the Municipal Socialist Group, Enma López. “What we want is for the City Council to get involved in municipal markets with support and investment, so that merchants do not have to deal with unaffordable expenses that are not their responsibility to cover,” he explains. He defends a management in which “the concessionaires are in constant coordination and involvement with the City Council”, even though the nature remains indirect.
Equally contrary is the councilor of Más Madrid Sara Ladra, also spokesperson for the formation in the Economy, Innovation and Finance Commission: “The changes go against the idea of municipal markets as an essential service to citizens, against the nature of the ordinance. which was to protect small businesses, social cohesion and life in the neighborhoods.” The danger, he says, is that they become “places of leisure and events, expanding tasting areas and organizing parades or concerts unrelated to the products or food.”
The changes go against the idea of municipal markets as an essential service to citizens, against the nature of the ordinance which was to protect small businesses, social cohesion and life in the neighborhoods.
Ladra warns against the danger that “the markets end up becoming bars, it is no longer a grocery store and it is becoming less and less local.” López, with nuances, points in the same direction: “I don’t think it’s bad that these spaces are energized with other activities, but food markets must be promoted and protected.” To this end, the PSOE of Madrid is committed to promoting trade schools (butcher, fishmonger or delicatessen) with the creation of a municipal one.
Another measure in a pedagogical and training sense, in this case incorporated by the City Council after accepting the socialist amendment, is the establishment of cooking classrooms in educational centers to learn how to cook and deal with gender. “It is a way to encourage generational change in this type of professions, so that the shutters that are closed are reopened, but also so that the audiences in these markets are renewed,” says López. School excursions or promoting the municipal commitment to showcookings that serve as a meeting point for the neighborhood on weekends go in this same direction.
“If the hospitality industry is the chosen model, we propose to tend to separate the activities as is already happening in Chamberí, with a specific restaurant area,” says Enma López as a solution to “some coexistence problems that the City Council cannot ignore.” the hands.” It refers, for example, to the arrangement of restaurant tables and chairs that obstruct corridors, loading and unloading areas or emergency exits. In this sense, Ladra argues that “if there are empty premises in these markets, a good option would be to give them to neighborhood associations and other activities that are needed in those environments, and not to place a store in them. locker so that tourists leave their suitcases.”
Ladra explains that the loss of identity is also explained by the management model: “The ordinance allows, on the one hand, direct management, in which the City Council delegates to a professional manager but always with public service criteria. And on the other hand, the indirect one, through a third party (often merchant associations) that hire that manager to follow only profitability criteria.”
Given the increase in tourism or the lack of generational change in the classic trades of these businesses, this exclusively economic objective leads in his opinion to the expansion of tasting spaces as opposed to local commerce: “This is only going to get worse now that 50% of the markets are allowed to be dedicated to tasting and the hours are extended for this parallel leisure, in the form of concerts or parades.”
“The mayor, when announcing the changes in the ordinance, already spoke about this claim for leisure and tourism. But we cannot put all public facilities at the service of performance and profitability, the one who loses is the citizen who is deprived of a public service,” Ladra denounces. “But the thing is that, even from the economic profitability, we see that there are markets like that of Barley that do not quite work with this bet either,” adds the mayor.
Barcelona: a larger investment with more funds that has an impact on consumption
For López, the model to follow is in Barcelona, where “the Municipal Markets Institute has a person dedicated to each market, who works face to face with the manager and accompanies the merchants.” And he adds: “What we want is for the City Council to exercise its responsibility over the markets. In a rental apartment, it is unthinkable that the tenant has to pay for renovating a roof, but that is what many merchants in municipal markets currently have to assume. “We do not want direct management, nor do we want to turn a butcher into an official, as we have been told.”
In a rental apartment, it is unthinkable that the tenant has to pay for renovating a roof, but that is what many merchants in municipal markets currently have to assume.
“I would like the markets to be a city pact, that we would build them together, but I see that this is not the case,” laments the socialist councilor. “In Barcelona, 30% of the purchase of fresh products is made in municipal markets. In Madrid that percentage is 7%,” he points out to support his commitment to a management format similar to that of Barcelona.
Beyond the model, López calls for a reinforcement of financing. The Barcelona City Council has invested 100 million euros in four years in the city’s 39 municipal markets (more than 2.5 million on average), compared to Madrid’s 48 million for its 45 markets (just over a million for each precinct).
For the councillor, it is a question of quantity, but also of financing methodology: “While in Barcelona direct aid prevails, in Madrid it is carried out through subsidies. And we already know that those who ask for them the most tend to be those who need it least, those who have more resources and knowledge. This gives rise to the establishment of first and second-class markets based on the private concessionaire.”
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