Artisans who have sold their work for decades outside the Sagrada Família fear for their livelihoods after being told to move their stalls under a new city plan.
For more than 30 years, around a dozen vendors have set up each weekend in Plaça de Gaudí and Plaça de la Sagrada Família, benefiting from the steady flow of tourists visiting Gaudí’s world-renowned basilica. But from 5 October, the council intends to relocate them to Plaça de Pablo Neruda, at the junction of Aragó, Marina and Avinguda Diagonal.
Most of the traders — many of them over 60 years old — oppose the move, arguing that the new location is far from the dense tourist traffic that sustains their businesses. They fear the change will jeopardise both their income and their ability to continue practising their craft.
The city council defends the decision as necessary to relieve pressure on the overcrowded area surrounding the basilica, which has been formally designated a space of high tourist affluence. The relocation forms part of a wider plan to manage public space in Barcelona’s busiest districts.
The dispute highlights the tension between the city’s efforts to regulate mass tourism and the impact on small, long-standing community businesses tied to its landmarks.
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