LIVING

In October, the Catalan parliament unanimously passed legislation banning bars, restaurants and discos from serving or promoting drinks as part of two-for-one specials, at discounted prices or as prizes for competitions or draws. ‘Open’ bars, or all-you-can-drink nights, were also forbidden. The law came into effect in November, and those who break it are subject to fines of up to €6,000.

British media were quick to blame their hard-drinking fellow countrymen for the change in legislation. The Daily Telegraph reported that Barcelona had “declared war” on drunken tourists visiting the city to celebrate stag and hen weekends. However, that perception is wrong, a spokesperson for the Generalitat’s Departament de Salut, Mariona Sanz Cortel, told Metropolitan. “It has nothing to do with English tourists, it’s a matter of public health.”

How much, where and the age at which Catalans drink is of growing concern to authorities. The last decade has seen a rise in the botellón, or ‘big bottle’ phenomenon among youth here, and all over Spain. This is the practice that sees teen drinkers congregate on the street to share strong liquor bought in supermarkets or corner stores and mixed with soft drinks or juices.

A 2004 Spanish Ministry of Health survey found that over 65 percent of students between the ages of 14 and 18 had drunk alcohol in the previous month, and that 30 percent of them had become intoxicated in the same time period. “The habit of binge drinking, consuming a large quantity of alcohol in a short period of time, has become extensive among minors,” wrote Elena Salgado in a 2007 report, when she was the Spanish Minister of Health.

Aside from health and safety issues, street revellers cause perpetual headaches for residents in neighbourhoods such as Ciutat Vella and Gràcia, who are forced to put up with noise, fights, litter and pavements stinking of vomit and urine several nights a week.

This is a cultural trend that was unimaginable in Barcelona 30 years ago. For María Luisa Solé, a professor of Economics at the University of Barcelona specialising in consumer behaviour and now in her late 40s, drinking on the street when she was a teenager would have been “impossible”—the laws were stricter, the social stigma surrounding public drunkenness more binding.