On the ground floor of a building on the Calle Federico García Lorca is a disco-pub. Residents of the building have been enduring the weekend noise from this disco for years. Some stay with family or friends at weekends. Others go back to work on Mondays having had barely any sleep. Sometimes it isn't only the weekends. One resident complains that they have had to put up with four nights in a row. "We get up and there is urine and vomit and there are broken bottles."
The residents maintain that the town hall and the police ignore their calls and their complaints, pointing out that the town hall has denied a licence for a disco. "But it continues to function with total normality. Only once has the police green patrol come to take measurements. These showed that they were exceeding the permitted decibels. But they haven't been back."
The town hall points out that these types of complaint take time and have to follow administrative procedures. These, unfortunately, are not always as swift as people would like, while the owners of the premises also have the right to appeal. “That a bar is not closed does not mean that proceedings have not been taken."
The building is in the Son Armadans district, and residents say that bars have been closing in El Terreno and Gomila and reopening in the area. But it isn't the only district which is affected. In Bons Aires, some distance away, residents are hanging out banners calling for "silence". "This is not Punta Ballena, it is a residential neighbourhood where people have the right to earn money, but not at the expense of the health of residents."
It's a similar story to that in Son Armadans - one of disturbance, lack of sleep, conflict and apparent impunity. And some of the bars look to turn the complaints back on the residents. As one explains: "They hide behind the fact that we are complaining because it is a gay club. They accuse us of being homophobic. But there is a gay couple living in the building, and they want the place to be closed permanently. We don't care if they're gay. We just want to sleep."