Spain: Barcelona City Council closes clubs

Barcelona's social clubs have been going through difficult and uncertain times. This is because the City Council started, last year, a campaign to inspect the various clubs that exist in the Catalan capital — in all there are more than 200. on the basis that the activity of cannabis consumption takes place inside them, reveals El País.

Since 2016, social clubs were governed by municipal regulations and, even before 2016, these associations operated by registering with the Catalan government (Generalitat), which received the statutes and inspected the establishments. However, in 2020, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) annulled the municipal regulations for cannabis associations and warned that they could only be considered, and should act, as a private social club.

According to THE COUNTRY, several clubs have already received notice of cessation, after an inspection by municipal technicians and the Urban Police, but the newspaper was unable to obtain from the City Council the total number of actions to inspect associations. According to the newspaper, in the termination proposals it is mentioned that the associations should limit themselves to “providing information, preparing or disseminating studies, making proposals, giving opinions on the matter, promoting meetings or seminars” of the activity that appears in the statutes of their members. private clubs, and “under no circumstances is it permitted to promote the consumption, cultivation, distribution of cannabis” or any other conduct that may imply an administrative or criminal offence.

CatFAC guarantees that there are more than 80 associations with administrative processes

The Federation of Cannabis Associations of Catalonia (CatFAC) assured EL PAÍS that, in 2022, about 80 of the more than 200 clubs in Barcelona were intervened. These clubs were subject to administrative proceedings, opened for various reasons. CatFAC argues that this situation is due to a misinterpretation by the technical services of some districts, which carry out inspections together with the Urban Police. EL PAÍS also reports that, in the documentation to which it had access, the closures are due to the fact that “cannabis consumption activity takes place” on site, and none of the six federated members of CatFAC in Barcelona nor the 36 associations of the Catalonia received termination orders.