Crusade against street vendors congratulated
Torrevieja town hall praised by association defending brand-names
TORREVIEJA town hall has been congratulated for how its local police force has fought against illegal street vendors, especially the so-called ‘blanket salesman’ along the sea front’ last summer.
The praise came from the brand-name defence association (ANDEMA), who said officers had bravely supported local shopkeepers against unfair competition from sales of forgeries, a council spokeswoman informed.
The association pointed out that the forgery business also involves many other criminal offences, such as money laundering and tax evasion, which leads to destruction of employment in retail and manufacturing, and dissuades investment into research and development.
ANDEMA claimed the police’s summer campaign ‘helped to stop and reverse tendencies which are harmful to Spanish society and the economy’. The council's actions have included a public awareness campaign about the dangers of counterfeit goods and regular crackdowns by the local police's elite GRO unit.
Since 1989 ANDEMA has worked to encourage the appreciation of brand names by the public in Spain, and to protect trademarks and patents by collaborating with chambers of commerce, the judiciary, the EU Intellectual Property Office and the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Network Group.
The town hall thanked them for this recognition, assuring that it ‘clearly rebuts the position and argument of the Partido Popular (PP) and the odd businessperson or association associated with them’.
“The same can be said for the crime figures of the security forces, especially the Guardia Civil, which show a significant fall in the number and seriousness of offences committed in Torrevieja,” asserted the spokeswoman..