If I take a 5-litre can of oil and empty it onto a busy-street surface, the chances are there will be an accident and I would face legal consequences. Not so when it comes to the Town Hall.

You see, each Semana Santa the Town Hall not only condones, but even supervises, the laying of a very dangerous layer of candle wax on the town’s main thoroughfares.

It’s madness!

Each year, motorbikes or any other 2-wheeled-transport users, risks ‘coming a cropper’ as they navigate the streets after an Easter procession has laid its booby-trap trail.

The Town Hall has the task – no, the obligation – to ensure that the municipal public ways are kept in tip-top condition and to act rapidly should an accident produce a spill on a road surface – out come the municipal police to control the traffic and the municipal-maintenance crew to lay sand on the affected surface after removing as much of the slippery substance as possible.

But we’re not talking about an ‘accident;’ we’re talking about a deliberate action. It is not enough that locals ‘know to be careful’ for a month or so after Semana Santa when using the streets. It shouldn’t be allowed – full stop.

Procession participants can use imitation candles using LED lights which consume very little battery power, so what is the problem?

It’s tradition? Well, so was tossing live goats out of bell towers and ripping the heads off birds, suspended on a rope over a river… but we don’t do it anymore, regardless of how traditional it was, do we?

It is not, after all, an infringement of religious expression to demand that you don’t trail candle wax along well-transited streets, is it?

The question is, does somebody really need to break their neck before, this very logical change is made to the Easter processions?

(Editorial comment: Semana Santa)