A blog about Tenerife, Linedancing, Food, Shopping etc.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The police force took our signs


Last night when we were eating our dinner at Lewinskis the restaurant suddenly was crowded with three policemen and one police lady. It has happened before so we didn’t take much notice about it.

About a couple of months ago there were a lot of polices visiting the restaurant and we heard they were out checking up the business permissions etc. and they even had been complaining about the sound that our music is causing in the nights.
Why they had to be as many persons for such a reason, is something I don’t understand. When I think of our home country Finland, where you seldom see any polices, it looks like a waist of money.

We continued eating but after a while Clas told me somebody is taking our sign that were hanging on the fence of the restaurant. I turned over and saw a man, wearing a yellow west, walking away with the big sign with our faces on, and he throw it up on a truck that was waiting on the street. I stood up and went quickly out to see what’s going on.
Out on the street there was a policeman who seamed to be the boss for the two assistants who were carrying stuff to the waiting truck.
I went to the policeman to ask what’s going on and if I can get our signs back when they are quite expensive to buy.
He seemed to be very nervous and started yelling at me that I have to go back into the restaurant directly. I was really surprised of the way he treated me and went back in without understanding anything.
I have never seen a policeman in such a state of stress. I expected him to kindly answer my questions and to be helpful like polices are in Finland.
This was a new experience for me. Why was he so angry? And why was he acting so desperately like he was afraid?

Back in the restaurant everything looked like a movie that is played in slow motion. Everybody was very quiet and had put on stone-faces and the owner of the restaurant had to show some papers. Nobody was saying a word. You could have heard a pin drop!
It seems like many people are afraid of polices in Spain. Maybe they believe you can be put in jail for no reason if you just open your mouth?
My picture of polices is that they are there to be helpful and to keep everything safe and in order. They are people you can trust and who you can turn to in need, like I did.
Maybe I am stupid and should change my mind now when I live in Spain?

We still didn’t know why all this was going on and you could feel it was not the right time to start asking.
I sat down with Clas and we continued the dinner waiting for the police force to leave.

When they had left we got to know that our signs had been on a space of the government of Arona community when they had been hanging on the outside of the fence.
The police force had taken both of our signs, even the one at the other street that has got light bulbs inside. They didn’t take the light-cable that also was hanging on the wrong side of the fence when they only were interested in signs this time.

There is a lawn between the street and the fence. Lewinski has, for free, been taking care of it even when it belongs to the community of Arona. Now the restaurant was fined when our signs were hanging like an ornament on the fence of the restaurant. The signs didn’t even touch the ground of Arona that would be a prohibited area. This looks like a bad `Thank You´ for the goodwill of Lewinski!

We have still difficult to understand why the policemen didn’t give a warning first and tell us the signs have to be on the inside of the fence. And why did they have to be so many polices for such a small thing? Did they believe that we are dangerous people and that we probably would attack them? All together there were 4 polices + two assistants + one truck driver to take our signs.

Today the owner of the restaurant is going up to the town of Arona to try to buy our signs back. I don’t know if it is right or wrong to pay to get them back, but you know, this is Spain! I just hope we will get them back.

1 comment:

Kiika said...

maybe they have too little to do on their working hours...;)