Operation against Oaxaca street vendors affects 30 artists from the Labastida Garden

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Oaxaca de Juárez.

The plastic artist Gabriel Zárate explained that there are 30 creators affected by the operation mounted since last July 15, to prevent the installation of itinerant merchants in the tourist walkway

Visual artists, promoters and art exhibitors asked the Oaxaca City Council to allow them to continue with the exhibition and sale of their work in the Labastida Garden, as they have traditionally done.

The plastic artist Gabriel Zárate Fernández explained that there are 30 creators affected by the operation mounted by the municipal authorities since last July 15, to prevent the installation of itinerant merchants in the tourist walkway and various streets of the historic center.

The activity they carry out as artists and the exhibition of their works in the Labastida Garden, he assured, is not about trading or reselling art, but rather that “they are people who deal with plastic art and that they are the ones who give it that plus and that touch the Oaxacan capital, as they promote the arts and culture that identifies these great people”.

Before the operation of the Oaxaca de Juárez city council, he reported that they filed two appeals before the federal justice and a complaint with the Human Rights Ombudsman of the People of Oaxaca (DDHPO); Additionally, they have requested a hearing with the municipal authorities, but they have only been delayed.

“The civil servants evade their responsibilities, arguing that the matter belongs to the Directorate of Government or the Commission of Aldermen,” he said.

In the early morning of July 15, 2021, the capital city council deployed an operation to protect the entrances and intersections of the first square of the city. This, to avoid that people dedicated to commerce on public roads and who do not have the corresponding permits, from settling in the roads and public spaces in the area.


Since then, the elements of the Municipal Police monitor 18 strategic points, as well as the Tourist Walk, the Zócalo, and the Alameda de León. 

Among the streets are Hidalgo and 20 de Noviembre, Hidalgo and 5 de Mayo, Independencia and 20 de Noviembre, Colón and Bustamante, Colón and Flores Magón, Independencia and 5 de Mayo, Reforma and Morelos, Morelos and García Vigil, Murguía and Reforma, Matamoros and García Vigil, among others.

The municipal authorities reported at the time that the primary objective of the operation is to prevent those street vendors who do not have the corresponding permit from being placed in the Zócalo, Alameda de León, and the Tourist Walkway, in addition to guaranteeing stability and non-alteration of public order.

But the visual artists who expose and sell their works in the Labastida Garden have not been allowed to settle as they have for years, since the municipal authorities implemented the police operation in the historic center for the reorganization of tianguistas.

Source: oaxaca.eluniversal.com.mx

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