Over the past four years, Madrid City Council has failed to comply with its noise regulations on 66 occasions during San Isidro celebrations. It did so through the public company dependent on the Culture and Tourism Area, Madrid Destino, the area that organizes large municipal events. The fines, drawn up by the Municipality’s Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility Area, amount to a total of 429,900 euros. Some, the most serious, are due to the fact that they far exceed the decibel limit allowed in areas declared to have special acoustic protection, such as Plaza Mayor or Plaza de Gabriel Miró. So far the City Council has not responded to EL PAÍS’ questions on this topic.
The fact that the Municipality itself is the one fining is a paradox because the money with which it will pay the amount of the fines comes from the budget item collected for the public company Madrid Destino and is returned to the municipal public coffers. However, for socialists, the significance of the issue goes beyond an economic problem. “The city council should be exemplary,” criticizes PSOE councilor Jorge Donaire. “They should demand the same things they demand from private developers, because it seems like the idea of regulation is only made for some,” he adds.
Some of the events for which the City Council authorized had special permission to exceed the established decibel limit, which is usually done on the occasion of patronal holidays or on the occasion of specific events. Although the noise limit under normal conditions is 45 decibels and the Municipality authorized concerts where it was allowed to reach 75, some measurements on building facades revealed that 100 were exceeded. The measure of noise is not linear, but rather exponential. Every three decibels the total volume is doubled. Therefore, the fact that 100 decibels were reached when the limit was 75 means that the sound was 323 times louder than allowed.
There are at least 66 reports of failure to comply with municipal noise regulations by the Municipality itself and all linked to events celebrated during the San Isidro celebrations. Of these, nine are from 2022, 27 from 2023, 18 from 2024 and 12 from this year. Not all actions resulted in sanctions because the Municipality only sanctions the event held on the day with the highest noise level.
The way Madrid Destino reacted to the sanctions has changed. In the first years, 2022 and 2023, he filed an appeal, but from 2024 he accepts them and benefits from the “recognition of responsibility and voluntary payment” to benefit from a 40% reduction in the amount to be paid. Despite this, in the last four years the Municipality has paid out 429,900 euros.
Municipal regulations provide for measures against violations for exceeding noise limits in addition to the payment of fines. This involves, for example, the closure of the event, the removal of the “emitting lights” (speakers) or even the suspension of the license to organize events of this type for up to five years. In cases where the Municipality itself did not comply with its own rules, only financial penalties were imposed. As expected, those considered “serious” range from 12,000 to 300,000 euros. In this case, even if there are some classified as “very serious”, the highest fine is around 24,000 euros.
From the Socialist Municipal Group they point out that, furthermore, the City of Madrid presented the so-called Action Plan on Noise Pollution in October this year, which considers the “major events” that take place in the city as “one of the main causes of noise complaints”. The PSOE criticizes the fact that, despite this, almost no measures are proposed to address this situation. Some of those that appear are to maintain “constant communication with the promoters of the events”, to condition “their celebration on compliance with a series of corrective measures”, such as soundproof screens, or to establish “operating hours compatible with the rest periods of the residents”.
