Aurelio Izquierdo is 63 years old and since he was 11 he knows perfectly the newsstand that has seen him and the neighborhood grow up. Located in Lavapiés, between the Casino de la Reina park and the San Fernando Market in Madrid, this Monday, December 2, will be the last day that the metal doors open. More than six decades of family business are left behind after a message that, sadly, he posted a week ago: “I will miss you. A hug for everyone.” The business, which once supported two families, no longer provides any more.
Posted in the small window from which he collects the few newspapers that he sells every day, about 30, Aurelio continues to greet normally the customers who still come to this enclave, an unofficial meeting place where they meet less and less. people from the neighborhood. “I started helping my father make returns. When I grew up and got a part-time job, I came in the afternoons to continue working with him,” he recalls with a certain plaintive tone.
Things have changed a lot. For years, Aurelio has not even opened in the afternoons. “It’s not worth it, so I closed at 12:30 p.m.,” he says. “When my father left, my brother and I stayed in charge. It was not very buoyant, but it was enough for two modest salaries,” recalls the newsstand owner. The business has always been going down, so the brothers decided that Aurelio would be the one to continue with it. “This is very slave. I am open seven days a week, every morning from 8:00 a.m., all holidays,” he says.
It doesn’t just happen to him. The sale of street press has gradually declined. So much so that Aurelio has found himself in an unsustainable situation. The poster announcing his departure, although he still has a few months left until retirement, has already raised the curiosity of some interested parties: “They ask me how much I will transfer it, but it catches my attention that almost no one has been interested in how much he earns in the kiosk. I tell them that it is not a good idea to invest in this.” Theirs, furthermore, is one of the few newsstands in the capital that has not yet been carried away by the sale of other products that also bring benefits, such as souvenirs of the city, drinks, bags or scarves from soccer teams.
On the other hand, the future of newsstands in Madrid will involve a renewal of licenses in 2029, when all of them expire. “The city council wants the infrastructure as such to be approved, because not all kiosks are the same. “Whoever enters here will have to spend around 30,000 euros just on a new piece of furniture,” Aurelio predicts, looking to the future of the business.
About 500 euros per month
There are many clients who approach him and ask about his progress. They look sad, somewhat resigned to the dynamics that the neighborhood is acquiring. “People come here every day to buy their newspaper. If he doesn’t come one day, we notice and the next day we ask him what happened. “We are a small family,” the newsstander continues.
In the good times, and Aurelio knew them well, many of the buyers purchased up to two newspapers, one for general information and the other for sports. “Now there are only two clients who do that. People read less and less press, and much less written press. The young people with a little more purchasing power have left the neighborhood and the older people don’t have a pension that allows them to buy the newspaper every day,” says the newspaper seller.
Today, he only sells 30 newspapers each working day, although he also makes money from advertising outside the store. “This hasn’t been a bad place to have a kiosk, but now it is. It is not a very busy space, as the Embajadores roundabout may be. Many people come here on Sundays to have an aperitif at the Market, but for that alone, no one thinks of buying the newspaper,” he complains. In total, the profits that the kiosk brings are around 500 euros per month.
Despite the commotion he is experiencing in recent days, Aurelio appears affable and tired in equal measure. “These last few days have been feeling very long for me. I am 63 years old and have some ailments, and I also want to quit,” he concedes. This state, on the other hand, does not prevent nostalgia from taking over: “Part of my life is leaving. I have been here with my father, then with my brother… But the cold is coming, and the best thing is to leave,” he says, without a hint of doubt.
Madrid and the agony of the newsstands
The situation in the capital is not very encouraging for his colleagues either. More than 290 kiosks in the city are members of the Press Sellers Association, with an average age of over 50 years. Javier Galindo is the secretary of the organization, he has been selling newspapers in Las Ventas since 1994 and admits that “these kiosks would have no reason to exist if it were not for the sale of press.”
Even so, Galindo sees a considerable drop in sales. “There has been a very big generational clash between somewhat older people, who maintain the routine of buying the newspaper, and young people, who do not buy paper,” he says from his kiosk. He is one of many salesmen who knows he cannot live off newspapers alone. “We complement it with other items such as umbrellas or literature books, or some of us become delivery points for parcels and Amazon returns,” he says.
The secretary of the Sellers Association emphasizes that each of them must read well the context in which they are located so that the business continues to be fruitful. In his case, close to a school, he makes sure to always have some attractive products for the little ones. As for the press, he sells about 50 newspapers a day, and the kiosk brings him about 1,200 euros a month.
On the other hand, Galindo is not too pessimistic either. From their point of view, sometimes the collective is victimized. “I know that we are going through a very complicated and difficult time. “We are touched, but not sunk,” he develops. And he adds: “Maybe in a while people will realize that getting information through social networks is doing it in a very biased way and will turn to the press again.” In any case, if that ever happens, it will already be too late for Aurelio. “Who knows what my lifelong kiosk becomes. Maybe I’ll come back in a while and it will even disappear,” he concludes.
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