Almería’s culture councillor resigns after drink-driving away from the city’s own fair in an official car

Driving an official car after a night at the city’s own fair, and a breathalyser test well over the limit to finish it all off, made an unfortunate combination for Almería’s culture councillor. Diego Cruz resigned within hours of being stopped leaving the Feria de Almería behind the wheel of a municipal vehicle. 

National Police flagged ‘unusual behaviour’ before the breath test

Diego Cruz was driving a municipal vehicle away from the Feria de Almería fairground in the early hours of Monday August 24 when National Police officers pulled him over near one of the fair’s security checkpoints. Officers reportedly noted he was showing unusual behaviour behind the wheel and called in Local Police to carry out a breath test. Cruz holds the culture portfolio on Almería’s city council, led by mayor María del Mar Vázquez of the Partido Popular (PP), and his stop came while the annual fair, one of the city’s biggest events of the year, was in full swing.

The reading was more than double the level that turns a fine into a crime 

The test returned a reading above 0.75 milligrammes of alcohol per litre of breath, according to Diario de Almería. That’s above the 0.60 mg/l mark at which drink-driving in Spain stops being an administrative offence and becomes a criminal one. 

Below that threshold, a positive test usually means a fine and points deducted from a licence. Above it, however, officers can open a case for a delito contra la seguridad vial (a criminal offence against road safety), which can carry a driving ban, community service or a prison sentence depending on the circumstances. Local Police confirmed proceedings had been opened against Cruz on those grounds.

He resigned before the council could even decide what to do with him

Cruz stepped down from his post as culture councillor once the case became public, according to Spanish media reports. His resignation spared Vázquez’s administration a decision it would otherwise have had to make itself, with the city still in the middle of its biggest week of the year. No successor has yet been named, and the criminal case over the breath test continues separately through the courts, regardless of his exit from politics.

Almería’s own police had already run 200-plus checks at this year’s fair

The irony has not gone unnoticed locally. A councillor for culture being stopped for drunk-driving at his own local feria, that he himself has been involved in the organisation and logistics of, is not a good look for the council. Local Police figures published by Almería city council showed 209 alcohol and drug tests carried out as part of 254 preventive checks during last year’s Feria alone. 

Cruz’s stop this year came from a separate National Police patrol rather than that organised operation, but it leaves his own council in an awkward position all the same: the institution that runs the checks now has one of its own councillors caught on the wrong side of one.