Simon Wade
THE SECOND weekend lockdown of Orihuela (Alicante) saw 27 fines for various offences in its first five hours.
Checkpoints set-up at points in and out of the city recorded infractions of measures such as skipping the curfew and not wearing a mask.
Now those checkpoints are being moved as ‘canny’ roadblock-dodgers move to secondary roads in and out of the city.
New guidelines make it illegal to enter or leave towns with populations that exceed 50,000, between 3pm on Friday and 6am on Monday.
In the Costa Blanca South, this includes Elche, Torrevieja and Orihuela.
According to the Government Delegation in the Valencian Community, during the first five hours of lockdown on Friday, February 5, a total of 27 sanctions were given throughout Orihuela for failing to comply with anti-COVID measures.
Ten were for skipping the boundary closure, three for breaking the curfew and two for not wearing a mask.
The remaining 12 were for reasons unrelated to lockdown measures.
During Friday afternoon, less traffic was detected on main routes in and out of the city, with more on minor roads in a bid, police say, to avoid roadblocks.
Officers were redeployed to those busier secondary roads in order to monitor compliance and help control the spread of Coronavirus.
