Second-Hand Car Spiv

Looking to sell a car? Well if you are and you live in Alcúdia, you won’t be able to try and flog it by means of a “for-sale” sign stuck in the window and with the car parked in the street. Thus reports “Euro Weekly” in its latest issue.

Apparently this is not legal. I wouldn’t know. But the town hall says not legal, so not legal it is – I’ll take their word for it. One of the other lines of thinking is that, by stopping people parking cars in streets with for-sale signs on, this will alleviate the parking problem. This is nonsense. Were it the case that whole fleets of cars were being left with their “se vende” notices, then there might be an argument. But there are not. The parking problem is a problem of a lack of parking not the odd car for sale.

Two of my neighbours in the recent past have had such signs in their cars. They have parked their cars outside their houses. Where else should they park them? When they drive off and park elsewhere, they are perfectly entitled to do so. What difference does it make if there happens to be a for-sale sign? A car has to be parked somewhere whether it’s for sale or not.

There is another argument; that by displaying a sign in public the attempt at transaction becomes subject to control by the local authority. In other words, one would need a licence to offer for sale. That’s more like it. The town hall would want a piece of the action, which they will not get because they’re banning the practice. One can understand the town hall’s thinking here though, even if it is stretching a point. If one looks to sell a car via a magazine for instance, one contracts with the publisher to do so. The town hall, it can justifiably argue I suppose, is acting as a means of promotion and distribution in the same way as a magazine is; it should therefore be contracted with as the sales channel or deny that channel if it so chooses.

There are other vehicles that are left parked in streets; vehicles that publicise this and that. They occupy parking spaces and are often left for lengthy periods. Maybe they have a licence to do so. It had never occurred to me that they might have to before this business with cars for sale came up. But if not, do not the same rules apply? A restaurant wishing to advertise itself through a magazine contracts with that magazine. The town hall already imposes a system of licensing if a restaurant (or other) wishes to hand out promotional material on the street (albeit this is often flouted and not just on the streets, it also happens on the beach). It is the same principle of contract one would guess.

Maybe there is a simple solution for the person looking to sell a car. Drive into neighbouring Muro and park there. There has been a for-sale 4x4 parked in the road by Smiths and Posh Paddy for a while now. It is situated on the Posh Paddy side of the road going away from Alcúdia. The boundary between Alcúdia and Muro divides that road, so Muro would be where it was parked. Possibly. So if anyone’s interested … There you go, I act as a sales channel, and it doesn’t cost a cent.


And a brief weather note. Apart from a sudden downpour three days ago, the weather has been amazing. January, and it really is beach weather. No kidding.


QUIZ
Yesterday – Herb Alpert or The Beatles. Today’s title – this is a song by which major English group of the ‘60s and ‘70s? The whole lyric for this song is one of the most hard-hitting the group’s singer ever penned.

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