Lucía Beneito was ten years old when she first landed in Lanzarote. Her parents moved to the island for work reasons from her native Valencia, to which Beneito would return to pursue university studies in Public Relations.
Already married and with two young children, she decided to return to the island. "I had worked in tourism, in reception, but now I wanted to get a job that would reconcile taking care of the children."
"I started with a little shop in La Villa, but it took up a lot of my time, so I decided to liquidate it. My colleagues from the market told me, liquidate the shop in the market."
Beneito listened to them and joined, not the one in La Villa, which being public requires more time to join, but the private market in Puerto Calero.
"I loved the camaraderie and it's easy to balance"
"Sometimes life takes you where you need to go. When I tried it, I saw that it was a way of life, and I loved it, especially the camaraderie and that it's very easy to balance having young children."
Beneito, who currently runs a faceted glass stall in the La Villa de Teguise market, has discovered over time that "what sells best is the single product, you have to specialize in something specific."
Currently, Beneito has just launched, together with more than one hundred members, the Lanzarote Association of Street Vendors (ALVA), which she chairs and whose main objective is to "create a solid community that can face the challenges of the sector."
ALVA seeks to establish a constructive dialogue with Public Administrations to promote the regulation and recognition of street vending as a professional activity and to foster a community of vendors who share knowledge and resources.
The president of ALVA explains that the Association arises to "make known what regulated street vending is" in public and private markets on the island.
Beneito explains that for many of the members, like her, life has led them to regulated street vending because they have discovered that "it is an occupational option that really gives you a lot of freedom and can facilitate a profession." Others have always dedicated themselves to it, for example members of the Roma community or colleagues who have come from Africa.
Among the public markets of Lanzarote, Beneito highlights those of Haría, Uga, Mancha Blanca, and especially that of La Villa, for its size and economic impact. Among the private ones, those of Puerto Calero and Marina Rubicón.
"The economic volume of the La Villa market is so large that the island, on Sunday, focuses practically all its economic activity on the Teguise market. I would tell you that 80%, not only the market, but also the taxi drivers, other transport, the guides, excursions... If cruise ships come, they come to the market."
"The ordinances are very good, but implementation is lacking"
Beneito explains that regulation exists: "The municipal ordinances are usually very good, but there are not enough technicians to implement them and control that everything is done in accordance with the regulations."
First of all, the president of ALVA thanks the "collaboration and goodwill of all the town councils" of the island and clarifies that "there are also markets that work very well, for example, that of San Bartolomé. Everyone hands in (the documentation), it is a legal company that takes care of setting up the tents, the people there are registered, if someone sells a cosmetic they have to have (a license)."
But not all markets work so well. "Being regulated street vendors means that we have to be self-employed, have civil liability insurance and meet a whole series of requirements," shares Beneito.
"I, for example, pay almost 300 euros as self-employed. If the person I have next to me is not complying with that, they already start with 300 euros in positive, it is unfair competition that is doing us a lot of damage and greatly lowers the quality. We need more supervision," she summarizes.
Beneito also highlights the lack of control with respect to the "product that is sold", that for example it is really originally from Lanzarote "if its sign announces it".
"Sometimes the solutions are slow or poorly oriented. In all the markets, especially the public ones, there is a space for agriculture and food and it is being neglected a lot. For us it is a very important claim because people also go to those markets looking for that type of products," she exemplifies.
Beneito also underlines the lack of sustainability plans and denounces the absence of waste classification systems: "10,000 people on average arrive in Teguise every Sunday and there is not even a container for bottles for example. Then you see on the networks how the town is left and people blame the market vendors who in reality want the opposite."
