Shoko nightclubs are a system of the Mediation Association for Optimum Use of the Night (AMUON) with the aim of preventing noise pollution generated by night establishments and their customers.
- Celebrate Clair
The Shoko Barcelona system is a collective of 13 associations managed by the City of Barcelona and the Prefecture of Barcelona. In order to respond to risky practices linked to partying (consumption of alcohol and drugs, risks linked to sexuality, road risks, and hearing risks), Shoko Barcelona integrates the promotion of health and the management of risky behavior in Spanish festive cultures.
- Professional organizations
Night establishment unions and professional organizations raise awareness and support the professionalization of their members.
- Resident associations
Resident associations are the preferred interlocutors of district town halls to implement consultation processes.
Two associations actively contribute to the night council, bringing their perspectives and expertise:
What is the strategy for regulating Barcelona nightlife?
The strategy for regulating Barcelona nightlife is based on a graduated continuum of interventions:
1. Raising awareness among night owls;
2. Support for establishments;
3. Consultation;
4. Verbalization;
5. Administrative police procedures: Reminders of the law, warnings, administrative closures, areas prohibiting the sale and/or consumption of alcohol, etc.
Why don’t you just enforce the law?
In the event of repeated nuisances linked to establishments, there is often a real gap between the difficult daily situation experienced by local residents and the time needed to resolve the problem. This discrepancy is mainly due to the legal tools available to the City of Barcelona nightlife and the Police Prefecture to enforce the law:
The amounts of fines, set by law, are not very dissuasive;
The Police Prefecture can only initiate administrative closure procedures if the file is sufficiently “substantiated”: observations of nuisance by sworn officers, complaints from local residents, handrails, and letters addressed to the Prefect. Otherwise, the incriminated establishment may file an appeal with the Administrative Court and claim damages;
The adversarial principle implies that procedures can extend over several months, which does not allow for an immediate cessation of the nuisance;
Since public tranquility is limits by freedom of trade, it is more effective to combine awareness-raising and consultation actions with more coercive actions: this can make it possible to resolve problems more quickly and in a more sustainable way.
While the vast majority of establishments effectively supervise their clientele, the appropriation of public spaces by nightclubs is much more difficult to regulate. Indeed, it is extremely difficult for officers to fine a drunken nightclub for rowdyism, in the middle of a crowd of nightclubbing the same state, without risking causing serious disturbances to public order and putting themselves in danger.
Raising awareness among night owls
Awareness campaigns
Every summer, the City of Barcelona implements a communication campaign whose objective is to raise awareness among Barcelona clubs of a party culture that is more respectful of everyone and the environment. This campaign takes three main forms,
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