Sol's camp empties the downtown businesses and leaves a bill of 20 million in two weeks

Twenty million euros in two weeks. This is what, according to merchants in the center of the capital, the housing encampment in Puerta del Sol has already cost, where some stores have lost up to 90% of their sales because customers cannot reach them.

"The textile trade in the area is suffering a very important impact," warns the Business Association of Textile, Accessories and Leather Trade (Acotex), which estimates that the sector's losses already exceed 60%, although it recognizes that it is difficult to specify them because part of the purchases have moved to the internet. The drop in traffic is the main symptom of the problem: customers barely enter the establishments and sales suffer. The impact also goes beyond the clothing stores and reaches all the surrounding businesses, which estimate the accumulated losses at around 20 million euros.

The protest started on September 26, when a group of protesters planted the first tents in the square after the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, to demand a new decree to stop cases like hers. Two weeks later, what was born as a symbolic gesture has become a camp of more than 2,000 tents that no longer fits at kilometer zero. The tarps have overflowed the square, advance through Preciados and Arenal to the doors of the shops and have altered the traffic of one of the busiest shopping areas in Madrid.

And nothing indicates that it will end soon. The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid rejected this Wednesday, for the second time, the request of the Community of Madrid to dissolve the camp, not yet appreciating inaction on the part of the Government Delegation, which defends the protesters' right to assembly. The campers, for their part, do not set a date for their departure.

The calendar aggravates the concern. With the general elections set for November 29, there is concern in the sector that the campaign will prolong the protest and that commerce in the area will not be able to return to normal just as it enters the so-called golden quarter, the last quarter of the year, in which a good part of its sales is at stake with Black Friday and the Christmas campaign.

Faced with this scenario, Acotex asks the administrations for a solution that makes the right to demonstrate compatible with commercial activity in Puerta del Sol. Its president, Eduardo Zamacola, maintains that both rights can coexist. While that solution does not arrive, the downtown merchants continue to count losses.