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The total blockade of beaches with bars and surveillance did not inhibit the presence of tourists on New Year’s Eve on the south coast of São Paulo.
Throughout the 31st, there were several agglomerations on the sand strip and along the entire sidewalk of the city. At midnight, groups formed on Enseada Beach in Guarujá to jump waves and light fireworks. There were no records of arrests.
“The city chose not to accept the red phase [do plano SP] and left everything free: restaurants, bars, ice cream parlors. What would you decide to close only the beach? Has no sense. What we saw was an invasion, and they knew it would be like that, ”he said. leaf resident Dulce Kato, 68, coordinator of the Let’s Take Care of Pitangueiras Movement.
Guarujá even announced on the morning of this Friday (1st) the option of anticipating the release of the beaches, claiming “that the situation is under control in the city”, only with the registration of “occasional crowds”, but without serious events. The initial projection was that access would remain closed throughout the first day of the year.
Of the nine cities that make up the Condesb (Baixada Santista Metropolitan Development Council), only the municipality and Santos promised total restrictions on the beaches to inhibit the advance of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bertioga and São Vicente made the partial closure, from the night of the 31st to the morning of the 1st. Other municipalities such as Praia Grande, Mongaguá, Itanhaém and Peruíbe stated that they would not carry out blockades because they did not have a contingent and insufficient police structure to contain the population boom of the period.
“A decree was made [em Guarujá], which was fulfilled in parts. The police took the tourists off the beach during the day, but at night they all returned. There is no way to prevent it, there is little effectiveness. [da polícia militar]”Says businessman José de Ávila, president of Aprohot (Guarujá Accommodation Owners Association).
The city received the most personnel for the summer operation. Of the 2,900 police officers sent by the state government to 16 coastal cities, 450 are in Guarujá.
According to Aprohot, responsible for 80% of the city’s hotel chain, occupancy for the period dropped significantly: from 98% on the last New Year’s Eve to 36% this year, with some daily rates recorded on the last day.
The fall was felt on the other side of the coast. According to Sinhores (Union of Hotels, Restaurants, Bars and Similar Baixada Santista and Vale do Ribeira), the survey for the occupancy rate for days 31, 1, 2 and 3 in the entire region was 94% to 66%, comparing the new year.
Despite the blockade, Guarujá did not have the busiest beaches on the coast. With the decision not to restrict, Praia Grande (78 km from São Paulo) recorded scenes of overcrowding during the day, with hundreds of umbrellas, street vendors, and bathers without masks, and also at times closer to the turn of the year.
At night it was common to see several groups sitting in a crowd on the boardwalk or with chairs placed on the sand, most of them also with tables and dinners set. Some of them had members of the risk group (older than 60 years).
Questioned by the report of leaf, tourists responded that they were taking risks and were no longer concerned about the pandemic. They also asked not to be photographed. “Fuck … for the crown,” one of the groups said in the report.
“Why am I going to close the beaches? People are already here, they have already moved in and came to the apartments. They allowed that, now the pen cannot act only for politics. It won’t change anything to ban now, the 31st. Can you go down, but can’t use the beach? We are practicing fraud, then, ”he said. leaf then Mayor Alberto Mourão (PSDB), replaced today by Raquel Chini, from the same party.
Like the others, Praia Grande also built sanitary blocks at the two entrances to the city, but even so, it claims to have received an uncontrollable volume of tourists.
On the 30th, President Jair Bolsonaro himself (without a party), staying at the Forte dos Andradas transit hotel, in Guarujá, promoted an agglomeration on Canto do Forte beach. Without a mask, he approached supporters, greeted bathers, took children on his lap and posed for photographs.
This Friday, Bolsonaro returned to the place by speedboat, accompanied by his entourage, and dived to meet hundreds of bathers in the sea.
In Santos, the city assures that there were no records of agglomerations in the stretch of just over 7 km of the coast. During the period, 1,453 guides were delivered to the population, with seven fines imposed for not wearing a mask. At dawn, the report captured two men being pulled out of the sea by the military police. They made obscene gestures.
According to Ecovias, between 12:00 am and 11:59 pm on December 31, 81,400 vehicles traveled along the Anchieta-Imigrantes highway towards the coast. The figure is 14.8% lower than on New Year’s Eve 2019, which registered 95.6 thousand for the same period.
