While the sale of printed newspapers and magazines will continue to be its forte, the goal is to soon enable Barcelona’s kiosks to expand their portfolio of products and services to the public.
These spaces will now be able to sell coffee or packaged food to take away and have more flexible opening hours.
The modifications are due to the fact that the Barcelona City Council extended the specifications that regulate the concession of the kiosks in order to implement improvements and carry out the changes agreed upon last summer with members of the sector.
All this is motivated by the fact that newsstands have been suffering for years from the crisis of the printed press, together with the consequences of the pandemic and the current global crisis.
New products from Barcelona kiosks
The reconversion of the kiosks began at the end of September last year when the incorporation of new services was authorized. These include ATMs, a last-mile parcel distribution box office and the installation of 5G antennas.
The agreement was reached with the Professional Association of Press Vendors of Barcelona and Province, APVPBP, the Association of Kiosks of the Rambla and the Association of Journalists of Catalonia.
The goal is to evolve the current kiosk model towards a more sustainable and economically viable model, capable of incorporating new products and services into its offer, while maintaining the sale of newspapers and publications as its main activity.
In this way, the municipal commission of Economy and Finance will seek to approve the modification of several clauses of the regulatory specifications for the concession of private use of public domain of the kiosks that are located on public roads.
This sheet was originally approved in 2013 and is in effect until 2030. It aims to regulate all kiosks except those on the Rambla, which are regulated by license.
The amendments pending approval are reduced to five proposals to be amended in the next few days.
The total number of kiosks in the city
The city currently has 296 kiosks, of which 259 have been awarded and nine more have been ceded to the Municipal Institute for People with Disabilities, IMPD, to be operated through a cooperative.
There are also 28 vacant kiosks, of which about six will be removed during this 2023.
According to the Barcelona City Council, since 2014, 190 transfers of ownership of kiosks and more than forty resignations have been processed.
The agreement will become effective after 20 days of public exposure and publication in the BOPB.
With respect to the eleven kiosks on the Rambla, they are regulated by license and will soon be processed according to the regulations that currently govern them.
