Madrid’s Plaza Mayor’s bars, cafes, and restaurants held a five-minutes-blackout on Tuesday night to protest over the high energy costs and surged bills.
The venues could be seen turning off lighting, pausing services for five minutes, as people continued consuming their meals and talking to each other while lighting candles on the tables.
“We are going to do a symbolic five-minute blackout of all the lights of the hoteliers and traders in the Plaza Mayor at 7 p.m. and we are going to light some candles to draw attention to the difficulty we have in meeting many of the costs of raw materials but above all of the electricity bill,” said the Head of Hosteleria de Madrid restaurants association Jose Antonio Aparicio.
“This is indeed a situation that has been preceded by a war that we have had to live through, by a European situation, but measures can indeed be taken, and measures can be taken because if they are not taken we are going to endanger many businesses of the more than 300,000 establishments,” added Jose Luis Yzuel, Head of Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation.
Blackout was implemented as a symbolic action at 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT) and lasted for five minutes. Many other restaurants around Spain have joined the protest movement.
