A salesperson laid a complaint with the police last Tuesday against a smalltown bar proprietor who refused to attend to his sales visit if he spoke in Spanish. As the local newspaper Segre explains, the salesman complained to the Civil Guard, who processed the complaint, and sent it on for a judge to consider whether there is a case to answer.
According to Segre, the complainant entered the establishment, Bar Santos, in Alcarràs, near the Catalan city of Lleída, to sell air fresheners. He spoke to the owner in Spanish, who asked him if he spoke even a little Catalan. In the face of the salesperson's negative answer, the owner pointed to the door without saying anything more.
Shortly afterwards another employee of the same company advised the bar owner that he would be reported to the police and some hours later a Civil Guard agent turned up at the bar to take the owner's details.
In declarations to the Catalan News Agency, the mayor of Alcarràs, Miquel Serra, affirmed that he doesn't know the manner in which the owner responded to the salesman but offered the proprietor his support regarding the reason for the complaint. "If someone who is buying something wants to be served in Catalan, they have the right to demand that, whether in a bar, in the street or wherever they are; it would be ridiculous for vendors not to have to address potential customers in the language the latter preferred", he asserted.