The Almuñécar Local Police, known for their daunting efficiency and citizen adulation, have arrested an African stallholder and confiscated his wares. This occurred at the Friday Market where this Senegalese gentleman had a stall containing 227 CD’s and 94 DVD’s of dubious origin.
The Councillor for Citizen Safety, María Dolores Sánchez – the same lady that shafted the Saturday 2nd-hand fair that was run by the Cancer Association – said, “I love the smell of Napalm…” Nah just kidding, Mary! No, what she said was, “This police action, which is constantly being carried out, belongs to the campaign directed by the Town Hall to eradicate illegal sales, which cause harm to the legitimate brand owners and traders.”
Now, what young Mary didn’t explain was why was it that street sellers, sporting their wares on blankets on main street thoroughfares, cheerfully operate 365 days of the year, not to mention the procession of hawkers that wander in and out of bars with everything from CD’s to small thermal-nuclear devices at attractive prices?
Let it be known that while this activity might be illegal, these said gentlemen are a credit to the town, being peaceful, cheerful citizens. Let it also be recalled that when Almuñécar did a quick impression of a submarine a couple of years back when the river banks broke, it was these young men from Senegal and there abouts who, without thought of recompense, immediately took up shovels and dug us back out again whilst we foreigners and our Spanish hosts stood around and waited for the authorities to act.
They don’t beg. They don’t suggest that you provide your signature and DNI number, as well as a cash donation, for a non-existent child in need of a life-saving operation. Neither are they inclined to loot your cortijo, steal your crops or introduce you to a stainless steel, wickedly sharp object, in a little transited street, as a conclusive argument for transferring the contents of your wallet to his one, which was somebody else’s anyway, not long before his meeting up with you.
No, we at the Seaside Gazette do not condone this illegal activity, but we do find it farcical that these face-saving operations are so triumphantly proclaimed, when it is apparent to just about anybody, that the other 364 days of the year the proverbial