Action “For Porto, All to the Bolhão” marked by tension with traders

A participatory action “Pelo Porto, Todos à Bolhão” was today marked by moments of tension when those who participated in the moment organized by the Association of Traditional Trade Water Bubble crossed paths with traders represented by another association of the market.

The tensest moments took place at 3:50 p.m., when, as scheduled, about 100 participants in the action formed a human cord to embrace the Bolhão Market while singing “the bubble is ours and it will be.”.

At the same time, at one of the entrances of this space in the center of Porto, more than a dozen merchants of the Association GTCMB – Bolhão Traders Working Group held posters where one could read “The D’Agua Bubble Association [which called the action] does not represent me.”.

At the same time, they shouted phrases such as “The Bolhão is the one who works”, explaining that there were people who were already working since 06:00 and accusing some participants of not knowing what they were doing and not buying in the market.

To Lusa, the merchant Pedro Fernandes, who has a bread stand and is represented by GTCMB, explained that the mobilization of the group for one of the doors of the market was spontaneous and they wanted to demonstrate “the strength of the market traders” and their union.

“ We find it very positive [that there is an action on the Bolhão] when the causes are properly embraced and well justified. But we talked with one, two or three protesters and they did not know why they were there ", argued.

Even these moments of greater tension, participatory action took place within the normal range.

By 2:30 p.m., several participants were filling out post-it to paste into two panels with the questions “what city do we want from Porto?” and “how to intervene in making city in Porto?”.

In the answers to the questions one could read phrases such as “give more strength to the associative movement”, “work in cooperation”, “come to the street – popular power”, “we want paw houses to live” or even “a city as the people who live here”.

Dina Ferreira was one of the people who joined the participatory action because she considered that “it is worth fighting for Bolhão, who is being completely distorted, is being completely removed from his main essence, from his soul, is being stripped of his identity”.

The Portuenses, lamented, are “to be eroded from the Bolhão with the mass and chaotic entry of tourists”.

Next to her, Maria de Lurdes commented that whenever she travels she likes to visit the markets of the various cities.

“And in all places, I find the market with the personality of the site, while what is happening here in the Bolhão is completely the opposite, this Bolhão no longer has the personality of Porto”, he stressed.

Helena Ferreira, president of the Association of Traditional Trade Water Bubble, explained that they called for participatory action because they felt that “just standing behind a screen of the ‘Facebook’ is not enough” and because it is time to go out to “take your wrist out”.

On the moments of tension between those who participated in the action and some merchants, Helena regretted what happened.

“We cannot escape what has happened. [...] We had clearance, we communicated what we were doing. It was a tense moment, especially because we are an association that advocates an idea of a city, defends an idea for the Bolhão Market, which is based on what the Bolhão Market classification itself is: the last fresh market in the city. We defend traditional trade,” he said.

For Helena, who is a merchant at an outside store in the Bolhão market, the moment “does not honor the Bolhão Market”.

In August, the Porto Administrative and Fiscal Court admitted a restraining order filed on 30 July by the Association of Traditional Trade Water Bubble (ACTBA) against the municipality of Porto and the municipal company Go Porto, responsible for managing the Bolhão Market, to suspend a public hasta at the end of July.

At that time, in the margins of a visit to the Port Book Fair, the president of the municipality, Pedro Duarte, considered it a “normal procedure”, stating that the court’s decision to accept the precautionary measure “does not mean that merit has been given to what is contested”.

In August, Helena Ferreira explained to Lusa that the providence “was interposed in the context of a popular action for the defense of the diffuse and collective interests of the city of Porto, in this case, the patrimony of the Bolhão Market”, already after having made an extrajudicial interrogation, the objective being to “stop” the contracts that resulted from the public haste of July 14.

In the public auction, in which Lusa was present, Go Porto allocated five banking occupancy licenses on the market, totaling EUR 22,910 monthly, with the highest value being EUR 7,550 monthly for a fish bank (when the base value was EUR 343,80).