Spanish police cause uproar over photo of older women enjoying alfresco chat

A Spanish police force have faced a public backlash after asking residents not to sit on the pavement, then posting a photo of six older women enjoying an alfresco chat.

Police in the small Andalucían town of Santa Fe requested that people refrain from putting chairs and tables outside their door, out of respect for neighbours and others using the pavement.

Accompanying the post on X, was a photo of six older women sitting on chairs on a pavement in front of a typical Spanish looking home. The women are smiling and look like they’re enjoying each others friendship.

What police don’t appear to have considered, was how protective Spanish people are of the tradition known as, ‘tomando el fresco’, which translates to taking the cool air.

The ritual, seen up and down the country and in other Mediterranean countries, sees individuals or groups of friends, usually the older generation, take chairs and sit outside in evening as the air cools down.

In their post, the police wrote: ‘We know that putting chairs or tables outside the door is a tradition in many towns, but the publics road is regulated.

‘If police ask you to remove them, do so out of respect and in the interests of coexistence. With civility and common sense, there’s no harm done. Thank you for your cooperation!’

The post on its own may have been better received, but the image of the six older women touched a nerve.

Several people took to social media to vent, some with angry messages saying older people should not be stopped from from taking their tomando el fresco, while others took a more tongue in cheek approach.

One wrote: ‘Colleagues, if you need back-up for such a dangerous mission, I’ll be there.

‘We need to put an end to this serious issue – no more impunity for grannies who sit out to enjoy the fresh air. The full weight of the law should fall on them.’

After the story was picked up by national media, the town’s mayor Juan Cobo said people were misinterpreting the plea.

Speaking on Cope radio he said: ‘No one is going to stop our older people popping out of their houses and sitting down and enjoying the cool air. No way.

‘This only applies to those people who head outdoors on the pretext of enjoying some fresh air and who then cut off the street and engage in unneighbourly activities such as having barbecues, singing and playing the guitar.’

He said the the police were just reminding people to be considerate of others, especially ‘people who have to get up for work at five or six in the morning and who have a right to their rest’.

Cobo said Santa Fe residents would be ‘totally safe in the knowledge that they can carry on cooling off outdoors’, and criticised what he described as ‘populist and sensationalistic’ reporting.

‘All this has been totally manipulated and its seems there’s nothing more important news-wise on a national scale for some media than reporting that people are being stopped from enjoying the fresh air on their doorsteps in Santa Fe,’ he said.

‘That isn’t true. We’re just reminding people who are behaving in an uncivil way and disturbing people’s sleep that they can’t do that and that there’s a law against it.’

In 2021, the mayor of another Andalucían, Algar told El País that tomando el fresco should be added to Unesco’s list ofintangible cultural heritage.

‘My mother’s 82 and she sits out on her street every day,’ he said at the time. ‘Some days, I finish work, pop down, take a seat and catch up on things. It’s the nicest moment of the day.’

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