Barcelona is a city of neighborhoods that “fan pinya”, and Sants has just given a master class. The protagonist is La Nova Farga, the iconic restaurant in Plaça de la Farga, and the villain of this story, of course, is bureaucracy.
It turns out that, as explained by el3notícies, the local media of Sants, Ramon Puñet, its owner, has been hit by an unexpected “brown”: a debt of 8,200 euros with the Catalan Tax Agency. The mess comes from the Covid subsidies that, as Ramon explains, nobody warned him that he had to pay back. To make matters worse, an error in the address prevented him from receiving the notifications, and the figure began to add up to surcharges.
The situation was so dire that Ramon seriously considered throwing in the towel and closing down. But then, as has happened before in other areas of the city, the magic of Sants happened.
Neighborhood crowdfunding
It was the neighbors themselves who encouraged him to burn the “last cartridge”: to launch a crowdfunding campaign. Said and done, “Salvem la Nova Farga” is already on Verkami and the response has been brutal.
The goal is to reach those 8,200 euros before December 13. To date, they have already raised more than 5,897 euros thanks to 150 patrons who have contributed in exchange for menus, symbolic help or the mythical “Pompeu Farga” T-shirts.
Ramon is overwhelmed by the support and is already thinking about the party they will throw if they succeed. In fact, the response has been so massive that they will probably have to look for a bigger place in the neighborhood, like Can Batlló, because the bar will not fit everyone.