People who work at La Explanada’s traditional craft market, who are often called ‘hippies’, won’t be able to move their stands directly to the second queue of the port walkway, next to the Fish Market building. As of last week, the vendors’ group, the Association of Vendors of the Explanada (AVE), asked the Alicante City Council, led by the Popular Party (PP), to move the shops as soon as possible. They say that this can’t happen until the vendors are given permission to use the space.

In fact, this request was made again this Tuesday when a new document was registered stating that 15 of the merchants want to move to the new location. This is to make sure that any possible punishments don’t happen until the stalls can be moved directly, without having to be taken apart and put back together again.

The deputy mayor and spokesperson for the governing team, Manuel Villar, said that the eviction process will not change. This was said in the weekly public appearance where the agreements made in the Local Board are announced. So far, he has said that the administrative process for carrying out the October plenary agreement is still going as planned. This means that the deadlines set out in the notice sent to all the stall holders, telling them they needed to take down their stands from the tourist promenade by this Tuesday, will still apply. If that doesn’t happen, the notice also said that the City Council would take it apart in a secondary way, with the latest date being February 24. The sellers would then have to pay for these costs, which the city believes will be around 33,000 euros.

In addition, this notice would mean that penalties would be used for every day that the stalls were not taken down. According to Villar in the same public appearance, this is where proportionality criteria could be used, taking into account the fact that the amounts of these penalties could be changed depending on things like giving advance notice of the decision to leave the promenade and confirming the exact date on which this would be done.

Meanwhile, the vendors who have already said they want to move to the second queue of the Paseo del Puerto are still working on registering their request for permission with the Port Authority. They hope to have all the paperwork they need this Wednesday so they can officially make their request. In this way, the group hopes that the permission can be given before the 24th, so that the City Council doesn’t have to move them out against their will. At the same time, some shop owners who had already said they were going to stop selling things continued to do so on Tuesday by taking down their stands voluntarily.