The City Police Beach Unit becomes operative

The City Police Beach Unit is now up and running and will be operative until the end of September, patrolling and carrying out preventive tasks at the ten beaches along the city’s seafront.

07/06/2023 12:23 h

Ajuntament de Barcelona

To this end, the unit has the use of the resources of the joint office operated by the City Police and the Mossos d’Esquadra police corps in Passeig Joan de Borbó, the police module at the Barceloneta beach and the module located at the groyne at the Bogatell beach. From these points the service can monitor all the things occurring at the beaches and develop relevant strategies to address them.

The beach unit also has the use of scooters, quads, bicycles, beach quads and two semi-rigid launches allowing for better monitoring and control of the beaches and the groynes.

As it did last year, the City Police will also be intensifying its prevention messages for beach users in different languages, reminding them of the dangers of some conduct, such as bathing next to the groynes.

The police modules will have leaflets for users to report incidents in different languages, along with basic replacement clothing kits for victims of thefts who lose clothes (with items of clothing and public transport tickets to get back home).

The activation of the Beach Unit is part of Operation Summer, which will be in place until mid-September to ensure mobility, coexistence, civil behaviour and security in the months when public space gets the most intensive use. The unit steps up the work that the City Police do all through the year in coordination with the Mossos d’Esquadra and the rest of municipal services.

Last summer the unit confiscated 116,018 drinks being sold by unauthorised vendors and reported 20,037 cases of itinerant sales of food and drink. A further 843 denouncements were formalised for other unauthorised activities, along with 37 for not respecting bathing indications, mostly bathing at the groynes and other points where bathing is prohibited or access restricted. Officers with the unit made 272 arrests and 425 denouncements for crimes, mostly petty theft and incorrect appropriation.

 

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