ARCHIVED - San Juan beach bonfire celebrations ruled out in Valencia city

The traditional Noche de San Juan which welcomes summer will not be marked on Valencia city's beaches on the Costa Blanca.

Valencia city council has warned the annual Las Hogueras de San Juan beach bonfires will be forbidden on June 24.

For the second year running, firewood will not be distributed and transport will not be laid on, as is normally the case ahead of the festival which welcomes the summer, while Local Police will patrol the beaches to discourage crowds.

Tens of thousands of people normally descend on Valencia city's coastline to celebrate the festival, but "concentrations and parties of this kind that can generate multiple contacts and contagions must be avoided".

Rather than an outright ban on gathering on the beaches and lighting bonfires at night to mark San Juan, the public is being urged "to leave the parties and celebrations for when the risks of contagion are zero", and efforts will be made to make sure this happens.

The fear is that, unlike the larger than life Fallas fiesta, it would be almost impossible to control thousands of people who are lighting their own bonfires across the coastline.

The Fallas festival, one of the biggest events in Valencia's calendar, will be held from September 1 to 5 this year but on a much smaller scale due to the pandemic.

"We are improving, but the data over the last few days continues to rise, and we do not want to make things worse by encouraging a situation of multiple contacts during San Juan with negative effects on the evolution of the pandemic," said the city council.

Despite this slight increase in cases, the Valencia government plans to lift curfew on the Costa Blanca from June 7 in one of a number of relaxed restrictions expected across the region's provinces, Alicante, Valencia and Castellon from next week.

IMAGE: Archive