The Guardia Urbana's new routine in Barcelona is to chase night-time crowds

BarcelonaIt's half past nine at night and the bars on Passeig del Born look like they did at midnight before the pandemic, but with more confusion. At the door of the Stereo 18 bar, the queue is long and the music is very loud from inside. Three Guardia Urbana officers argue with the manager. "Turn the music down", they say, and warn that the bar is going "well over" what is allowed. It seems impossible, with the end of the state of alarm, to be able to control what happens behind the doors of each night bar.

In a bar in front, Fabián controls access so that the capacity is not exceeded. "It's strange", he admits, still without reaching the euphoria of returning to work after months closed. "There are many foreigners", he acknowledges and, indeed, one of the differences of this Saturday night in relation to previous ones is that tourists are already beginning to fill the streets of the city center. At the end of the Passeig del Born the Guardia Urbana vans are preparing for the new routine that begins at midnight - an hour later than last week after the decision of the TSJC- to disperse the agglomeration that is generated when all the people leave the bars. By the end of the night, some 3,475 people will have been evicted from different streets, squares and beaches and one person will have been arrested for disobedience and resistance to authority in the Born area.

Hospitality workers hesitate between sharing the joy of those who have been unable to dine out for months and frustration over the backpack of accumulated debt. "Yes, we are making 100% more than with the state of alarm just because we are open at night", says Alex, owner of the pizzeria and bar Paco, in Allada-Vermell street, "but the debt has multiplied by three, it is hundreds of thousands of euros and it will take us more than a year to recover from this backpack". He says it without joy, resigned to carrying a weight that will be hard to get rid of.

On the outdoor seating of his bar, on the other hand, Maria Antònia, 28, says she is "very excited" because she can finally "escape and get out of the house, do something more than just produce, produce and produce". Her friends share her joy, despite the fact that Daniel, 32, has been drinking a few beers on the streets for months now beyond the state of alarm. "I was still feeling rebellious", he jokes. Àlex, 33, expresses the desire to "go out, dance" and assures that right now he would go to "any night club if they were open".

At midnight, in fact, begins the thankless weekly work of the Guardia Urbana: chasing people to try to avoid crowds. "We know they want to go out, but we have to avoid large groups", says an agent with a positive tone. Once again, the police interventions in the middle of the party leave some arrests and images that are a bit grotesque, like the one of a young man stretched out on the ground in front of the police as if he were at a protest.

Rivers of people head for Barceloneta as if there were a festival. One of them is Julie, a 23-year-old French woman who has just arrived to spend a few weeks in Barcelona. She's angry because she's just been fined 60 euros for drinking on the Arc de Triomf promenade. "Of course I'm going to Barceloneta, I have to drink to forget the fine!" she says. She goes with her friend Kasumi, a Dutch woman who came to live in Barcelona six weeks ago, attracted by the Mediterranean flair that she cannot find in her country. "I'm not made for Holland, here people are more open", she says, and explains that between work friends and flatmates, also expatriates, she is meeting dozens of people every week and they meet on the beach to have small parties, drink and listen to music.

Once on the sand, police efforts to avoid crowds will be in vain. At the height of the night, hundreds of people are shouting, dancing and drinking on the beach. Police cars with siren lights on drive up and down the city centre all night long as if Barcelona was suddenly the capital of crime. Nothing could be further from the truth, it is the titanic effort that is needed to enforce this kind of half-hearted dry law that means breaking the inertia of the night, which is none other than to meet and party.