Barcelona toasts to La Mercè with a vindication of local commerce

BarcelonaBarcelona kicked off the 2026 La Mercè festival this Wednesday with an opening speech that championed local commerce as one of the city's great distinguishing features. It was delivered by Toni and Meritxell Falgueras, father and daughter and representatives of a dynasty of shopkeepers who have been serving the neighbors of the Sants neighborhood for over 131 years from the counter of the Celler Gelida. Both delivered an agile speech in which they called for people to continue shopping at local businesses. "Not so much crying when they close, but doing more to ensure they don't," they emphasized.

In addition to a review of their family and winery history, the speech was a plea in defense of local commerce. "We do not want and we cannot afford for more businesses to close. We want lights on in the street and beautiful shop windows to walk into and buy from, not just packages delivered in the dark and without a word," they claimed. "We cannot allow Barcelona to have the same shops as everywhere else in the world, with the only differences being the language and the currency," they continued.

Along the way, they outlined some of the threats facing local commerce that go beyond changing consumption habits or the threat of Amazon, threats that also have to do with the increase in commercial rent prices. "I cannot imagine the problems shopkeepers have nowadays in reaching these astronomical rents that force them to close," they said, and they denounced that often "the premises remain empty" and the neighbors are "left without services."

Mayor Jaume Collboni also spoke about the rent issue, and referred to the announcement he made last Friday about creating a municipal fund to save strategic and iconic businesses. "We are promoting measures so that rents do not make iconic establishments disappear," he noted, while affirming that "protecting commerce is also protecting the city."

A life linked to Sants

More than a century being part of the day-to-day life of a city like Barcelona makes you a privileged witness to history and a protagonist of a neighborhood that the Falgueras family –Toni and Meritxell are the fourth and fifth generations working at the winery– have seen change over many years. "Before, there were many more shops on our street and many have disappeared due to competition from large retailers and franchises," they lamented.

His life has been so tied to Vallespir street in Sants that Toni Falgueras explained that he has spent "practically his whole life within 150 meters." He was born in the apartment above the winery and went to school in the neighborhood. "And now they have even put a funeral home right next door," he ironized. He also married the neighbor from across the street, Maria Febrer. She was the daughter of another illustrious merchant of the neighborhood and one of the most remembered characters in Sants: Vicenç Febrer. He was a car and motorcycle salesman, a boxer, and a Spanish wrestling champion. He was also a city councilor for Sants. But above all, he is remembered for his passion for exotic animals and for having had for years a lion—the Vicentet— in the window of his Automòbils Febrer shop, right next to the winery.

The opening speech was the starting signal for a Mercè festival that this year has among its novelties that it will schedule activities in the ten districts of the city and will premiere new venues such as the Parc de les Glòries Catalanes. A major festival in the Catalan capital that has Shanghai as the guest city and that will culminate on Sunday with a pyromusical that, due to the construction work at the Fira de Montjuïc, will be held this time at the beach with a musical selection by Josep Montero.