Barcelona plans to open sports centers and civic centers to offer nightlife alternatives.

BarcelonaLet the night not be "a source of problems, but rather opportunities." With this objective in mind, Barcelona City Council's Night Commissioner, Carmen Zapata, presented her main lines of action for this term this Tuesday. A roadmap that highlights proposals aimed at diversifying the city's current nightlife offering, such as opening municipal facilities such as sports centers or community centers at night to offer alternatives to those more closely linked to bars and nightclubs.

"Not everyone is interested in traditional leisure activities," Zapata emphasized in statements to journalists, arguing that the City Council has many local facilities that can extend hours and offer alternative options. Although this is still an initial proposal under development, the council emphasizes the importance of offering alternative leisure activities for those people—especially young people, the group most affected by unwanted loneliness—who seek out activities such as sports, culture, or video games.

The goal would be for certain specific city facilities to be able to open until midnight or one at night on certain days, or even for some to offer activities during those hours in certain parks or squares. "We're not saying they'll have soccer leagues at three in the morning. We're talking about reasonable use," the city council emphasizes, arguing that the proposal seeks to reconcile the interests of Barcelona residents who want to enjoy the nightlife and those who want to relax.

The measure's underlying intention is to decentralize the city's nightlife, which is currently located mainly in four districts: Ciutat Vella, Eixample, Sant Martí, and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi. Zapata is also responding to a proposal by the ERC (Republican Workers' Party) that was approved by the security committee last December with the votes of the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), Junts (Junts), and Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona en Comú).

Prevention and public transport

The diversification of nightlife is one of the main proposals Zapata presented this Tuesday during the first meeting of the Nightlife Council, a body chaired by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, and also attended by around one hundred agents and operators of Barcelona's nightlife. This roadmap comes six months and more than eighty meetings after Zapata took office, with which the City Council aims to regulate the city's nightlife.

These initiatives for the comprehensive management of nightlife from 2025 to 2027 also include the reinforcement of measures to prevent harassment and sexual violence, such as the purple points, the protocol We do not remain silent and safe routes. In this case, Zapata's proposal is to expand existing routes—routes between entertainment venues and public transport—and to ensure that subcontracted security personnel are always present so as not to rely, as until now, on whether the Guardia Urbana patrols had an emergency and had to leave. Furthermore, the number of mediators will also be tripled—currently there are only three pairs for the entire city.

Among the new features of Zapata's plan is the creation of a figure that has been nonexistent in the city until now: the change agent. This person, with the aim of preemptively avoiding neighborhood conflicts, would intervene in urban planning processes so that when new housing has to be built near a concert hall, nightclub, sports center, or theater, these buildings would be designed with this reality in mind. For example, by enhancing their acoustic insulation or even building rooms on the interior of the building to reduce noise.

Part of the work carried out so far by Zapata's Nightlife Office has been to thoroughly analyze how the city operates at night, also studying which trips are made and whether they fit within the existing public transport network. This is aimed at redesigning the night bus network, if appropriate. This would include the implementation of shuttle buses from entertainment and concert areas such as the Palau Sant Jordi.

Despite the project's ambition, the budget the Nightlife Office is seeking to implement this entire plan in three years is between 1.5 and 2 million euros.