For two months now, the Local Police of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council have been intensifying police controls aimed at eradicating illegal street vending in public tourist spaces in the municipality.
In these actions directed by the Security Department headed by councilor José Carlos Álamo Ojeda, members of the Citizen Security and Immigration and Borders units of the Local Police Station of the National Police of Maspalomas are actively collaborating.
This collaboration of the police forces has been increasing, especially in recent weeks, with “very positive and satisfactory” results, say Álamo Ojeda and the accidental chief sub-inspector of the Local Police, Carlos Monzón Afonso. “We are detecting that as control interventions have been reinforced and accentuated, a notable reduction is being achieved in street vendors who illegally occupy public roads, causing inconvenience to tourists and pedestrians,” they say.
There have been controls against the manteros in which up to 22 security agents have intervened. Police actions are being carried out at different times and in different places to avoid alerting offenders. The main areas where they are being developed are the Paseo Costa Canaria, the stretch of promenade adjacent to La Charca de Maspalomas, the Oasis and Annex II shopping centers, and the surroundings of the Maspalomas Lighthouse. For a long time, business owners in the affected areas had been denouncing the situation of harm caused to them by illegal street sales without their complaints and demands being addressed.
The Security Councilor highlights that the involvement of the Immigration and Borders unit in these operations is being considered “extraordinarily valuable”, because a large number of the illegal sellers are not of Spanish nationality and in the task of their personalized identification they are being checking your status of regular or irregular stay in the country.
Penalty and fine
From the controls carried out, where around thirty people have been identified, it appears that the vast majority of these illegal sellers do not reside in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, that in proportion there are more men than women and that their ages range from 20 to 50 years old, approximately.
Personal identification entails that each of the manteros will be seized of the illegally sold merchandise and will also be subject to a disciplinary procedure that entails the imposition of a significant fine ranging from 1.500 to 3.000 euros.
All the merchandise that is being seized from these street vendors is destined for complete destruction because they are counterfeit products and of unknown origin and provenance. These are mainly sports clothing, bags, caps, watches, bracelets and glasses, among other accessories for both men and women.
