The mayor of a small town in southern Spain felt compelled, a few days ago, to clarify that there is no new municipal ban on older women sitting out on the pavement in their own chairs. He was responding to a furious online backlash directed mostly at the town’s police after they posted a message on social media urging the residents of Santa Fe to show “civility” by not sitting in the streets in the late hours disturbing neighbours.
This plea for respect for the public space was hardly a draconian law and order crackdown: it was a reasonably worded reminder. “We know that putting chairs or tables outside the door is a tradition in many towns,” it said, “but public spaces are regulated. If the police ask you to remove them, do so out of respect and in the interests of coexistence.”
