A pensioner called Miguel R. in Barcelona has been fined 160,000 euros by the city for putting up 300 “work wanted” posters around the city.
The city took them all down, and fined him 375€ a pop. For some reason they couldn’t find him the first time they sent the fines, so they added on a late payment penalty for good measure.
His lawyer told the Press that his client has been sent into a deep depression by the fines, adding that he lives off a pension of under a €1,000 a month, from which he must pay his rent and support two adolescent children.
The lawyer also pointed out that in the outlying city of Terrassa, where his client had put up similar posters, the local police called him up on the phone number printed on the poster telling him he wasn’t allowed to put up posters, and he’d voluntarily gone back that same day to take them all down. The Barcelona local police had just fined him.
He didn’t get a response to the ad, either…
This heavy handed bureaucracy on a little enterprising man who has become desperate and now possibly in danger of illness through worry, is just what protest groups home in on. This is a terrible example of leadership by the city elders. Shame on them.