Fourteen establishments looted or with damages and criticisms for the lack of foresight

BarcelonaThe riots on Saturday night in Barcelona have left 14 establishments looted or smashed and numerous damages to urban furniture, which the Barcelona City Council has already estimated at an initial value of 36,000 euros. The center of Barcelona woke up this Sunday morning with the effects of the riots that took place last night. Many shopkeepers and workers were trying this morning to fix or cover up some of the damages—which mainly affected franchises or luxury stores—while other shops were still waiting for repairs.

The day after the serious disturbances, the affected sectors have already raised their voices. "Disappointment", "frustration" and even "fear" and "sadness", are some of the words that merchants were using this morning to describe their feelings. Elvira García, the director of the union of commercial and tourist hubs of the center, Barcelona Oberta, has lamented that all this happened on one of the days with the highest influx of customers in the shops and "without any warning". The Barcelona Restaurant Guild has also denounced that the administration did not correctly assess the risk of the protest call and that the police deployment to respond to the riots was "insufficient".

In a statement, this guild laments that no administration contacted them to alert them about the call for this past Saturday, hours before the riots, or to convey any support during the altercations. The truth is that the Mossos were aware of it, as confirmed also last night by the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and the Minister of Interior and Public Security, Núria Parlon.

In this sense, the restaurateurs consider that the administration "underestimated the risk" and, as a consequence, "the deployed device proved insufficient". For all these reasons, they state that they feel "disappointed" by what they describe as a "chain of errors" by those who have the duty to guarantee security and public order. The City Council already assured last night that it will appear as a prosecutor in the cases that are opened for the riots and, in this sense, the restaurateurs' guild has asked that it defend not only public property, but also private property that was vandalized.

This morning, the mayor, Jaume Collboni, visited the merchants in the area and assured that negotiations will be opened to address the demands made by the economic sector, with aid in the claim processes and even financial aid "if necessary". Collboni has positioned himself "absolutely on the side" of the merchants and restaurateurs and has said that the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa —with whom he has been in constant contact since yesterday afternoon—, also agrees on opening these lines of aid.

36,000 euros in street furniture

Regarding urban furniture, the unrest of the gathered youths focused on bus shelters and dumpsters. They also set fire to shared mobility company bicycles and some motorcycles. During Saturday night, 31 dumpsters were burned, which have already been replaced, just like the 106 that were preventively removed from the riot area "due to the risk that they could be vandalized," the city council points out.

"Municipal services have worked throughout the night to restore normality to the city," point out sources from the municipal team, who have estimated the initial valuation of these damages at 36,000 euros. The same sources have specified that this morning the access points to the metro and the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, which were closed yesterday when the disturbances began, were reopened at dawn and are now operating normally again, and the bus lines have also recovered their frequency of service through the area.

The unannounced protest gathered about 500 young people in Plaça de Catalunya and its surroundings, most of them dressed in black and hooded, following a call that spread through social media, very similar to those that have shaken France and other European countries in recent days and which also ended in violent incidents. The Mossos reported this Sunday that they arrested 128 people in Barcelona, of whom more than half were minors.