Association calls on government to intervene; local efforts “insufficient”
The Association for the Revitalisation of downtown Lisbon (ADBP) has warned of a growing wave of daily robberies in shops in the Baixa district of Lisbon, calling on the government to intervene.
According to ADBP, there is a “worrying average of five to six incidents per night”, adding to the problems already identified in this area of Lisbon, namely “abusive street vending, the intensification of the illegal sale of fake hashish in the form of pressed laurel leaves and mallow tea, as well as drug use and trafficking in public spaces”.
Association president Manuel de Sousa Lopes tells Lusa that the association has been holding regular meetings with PSP police, Lisbon city council (CML) and the local Santa Maria Maior parish council to report these problems, which “have been getting worse”.
Due to the current state of affairs – and very much like what is happening in Albufeira – the association has requested an urgent meeting with the minister of interior administration, with the aim of ensuring coordination of actions by central government, since “local efforts alone have proved insufficient to respond to the complexity and scale of the current situation”.
“We have made our case, we hope there will be a response to our security needs and, above all, that video surveillance will be installed more quickly, because it is not [just] security for businesses: it is security for the city and for our Baixa Pombalina district,” said Sousa Lopes, stressing that the system would be “the eyes of the police in the middle of the street,” allowing them to act more quickly to prevent assaults.
According to the ADBP president, the area is suffering “a wave of a type of robbery that did not exist” before, and which has worsened in recent times – which has been “absolutely frightening” and very worrying for business owners, “who complain bitterly that insecurity is becoming a serious problem for open-door establishments” (meaning business into which any member of the public can walk into).
These are “robberies where the perpetrators enter the establishment, steal and leave”, which, in general, are affecting all types of businesses, even traditional ones, where “the shop window is broken” and then the contents of the establishment are stolen.
“In some cases, just out of malice, the glass is broken and nothing else is done. In others, the glass is broken and products in the window display are stolen,” he said.
ADBP stress that the phenomenon is contributing “to an environment of urban degradation, fuelling a feeling of impunity and jeopardising commercial activity and the safety of residents, workers and visitors”.
Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas has for a long time been calling out the rising incidents of crime in the capital.
Source: Lusa
