In September 2021 the Barcelona City Council published a press release informing of the suppression of licences granted to cannabis user associations and warning of upcoming inspections of the premises to check that they were complying with current legislation.
During that weekend, the associations began to talk about this, while some thought that it would only affect those opened after 2016 and others began to ask why and for what purpose these inspections could be carried out. In the following weeks, more than 200 associations in the city of Barcelona received this notification informing them of the suspension of the validity of activity licences granted under the 2016 regulations. They were also informed that inspections would soon be carried out to check that they were complying with the law and to ensure that they were not promoting the consumption, sale and cultivation of cannabis.
As members began to receive letters, they began to wonder whether these inspections were not intended to limit their activities or close them down. Many associations contacted other associations to see if they also received these letters and started to discuss the situation with members, lawyers and other social organisations. Faced with the doubts created, some associations informed all members and asked them for caution and patience, while others even opted not to have cannabis on the premises in case the inspections were intended to find evidence of possible offences that could lead to legal problems or future administrative actions.
future administrative action.
In the following days, several organisations and law firms met with representatives of the City Council to let them know that many associations understood that the intention was to limit the activities of an association and that the intentions of the inspections were not clear. Organisations such as CatFac, FedCac, Luz Verde and several law firms sat down with the City Council in meetings, where the City Council did not make it clear whether the inspections were intended to find reasons to limit activities or close them down, but did dispute that there was weed or that it was being consumed in the premises. A second meeting was scheduled for the following weeks, although in February the first inspections began to take place without a second meeting with the organisations and lawyers.
During the months of September to November, some sporadic inspections were carried out as a result of complaints from neighbours or denunciations. Although these inspections in some cases stopped the activity of the association while it was being carried out and also counted the number of members in the headquarters, asked for their ID cards or checked the products and quantities in the dispensary, in reality they did not seem to be directly related to the notification of the Town Hall. During the end of November and until mid-January, no further inspections of any kind took place.
At the end of January the inspections began. Normally a couple of inspectors from the city council and a couple from the Guardia Urbana attended the visits, but this was not always the case and sometimes there could be up to four inspectors from the city council and 12 agents from the Guardia Urbana.
It also coincided with the closing of the Betty Boop association near the Plaza Frances Maciá on 25 January. Unrelated to these inspections, the police showed up with a closure order, forced the members who were in the headquarters to leave and proceeded to seal it.
As the days went by and the inspections were carried out, details of the inspections were shared among the associations themselves. Most of them were concerned because they were unaware of the purpose and doubted the legality of the entry of city police officers into these private spaces, so although most of the associations allowed the entry of both city council inspectors and city police officers, some did not allow the inspection to take place or in other cases they did not allow the city police to enter and the city council inspectors to enter.
In these cases of not being allowed to enter the headquarters, the city police officers informed that the association was liable to a fine, to which these associations insisted on their status as private places. In some cases, the officers simply wrote a report, but in other cases, the officers discussed the fact of not letting them in, and there were even cases in which officers said that they were going to be stopping members when they left the association for the next few days, perhaps with the intention of obtaining evidence to accuse them of a crime so that they could enter with a warrant. Some associations have already received complaints of this type, with fines of up to €25,000 in some cases, although others are lower. All of these have had their respective appeals lodged by their lawyers.
Inspections did not stop during the days of the Spannabis fair in Cornellá de Llobregat, when many people attending the event took advantage of those days to visit one of the clubs, usually in Barcelona, or return to the clubs where they were already members from previous years.
There are associations that have been inspected several times, some up to four times. And there have also been visits in which products have been seized and some people have even been arrested and spent a few days in jail. Although some associations have also been closed, it has only been temporarily, either due to an intervention or due to a lack of technical repairs, which once solved and after an inspection, they have been able to continue with their activities.
At the same time as these inspections were being carried out in Barcelona, the number of news items, reports, articles and publications in the media offering information about these associations, or in other cases reflecting opinions against and in favour of them, increased. Many users and associations all over Spain were receiving half-baked information about these inspections, and even hoaxes were being created that spoke of the closure of dozens of associations. The truth is that the associations in Barcelona have not been closed down, but they do feel persecuted and their future seems more uncertain than ever before.
Several political groups in the Barcelona city council have called for the closure of all the associations in the city, completely disregarding and ignoring the origin and purpose of these associations, as well as not offering an alternative to the more than 250,000 members of associations in the city, who regularly go there and who would turn again to street dealers and drug trafficking as many have no possibility to grow at home for personal use.
Great journalism for a sector full of uncertainty.