Consumption room moves from Pasteleira to Aleixo — where there are 375% fewer consumers

City Hall contradicts itself with the study it presented as justification for the transfer, which argues that the room should be located where there is consumption and where there is sale, and reports a petition against the change.

Nearly 100 people demonstrated this Friday in Porto against the transfer of the Assisted Consumption Room from Pasteleira to Aleixo, demanding inclusive policies from the city council and the dispersion of this assistance throughout the city.

The exterior of the Parish Council of Lordelo in Ouro was the location chosen by the Porto Cidade Responsável Civic Movement to resume the fight against the municipality’s decision, with Alberto Baldaque, the first signer of the petition against the transfer of the room to Aleixo, defending the document that brings together more than 1,600 signatures.

“We are not against social responses, we are against bad policies. What we understand is that, effectively, there is no justification, neither technical, nor epidemiological, nor geographical, for transferring this room”, he said.

The movement’s spokesperson revealed that the Porto City Council sent them “studies that are completely generic and that say precisely the opposite (…) namely, a study by ICAD (Institute for Addictive Behaviors and Addictions]from 2025, says that 38% of users are on Pasteleira and only 8% are on Aleixo”.

These numbers reflect “brutal disproportion”, says Baldaque. There are 4.75 times — or 375% — more users at Pasteleira than at Aleixo. But, the study itself says that the room must be where there is consumption and where there is sale”, insisted Manuel Baldaque, stating that “no one believes that the consumer will buy at Pasteleira and then come on foot, about 15 minutes, to consume at Aleixo”.

And he continued: “That’s not going to happen. What will happen is the consumer will disperse.”

The issue of security

The current location on Rua 25 de Julho is 850 meters from the new location, a measure announced by the council that Manuel Baldaque was quick to correct, stating that the distance cannot be measured in a straight line, the real distance being around two kilometers.

With a poster in hand that read the reasons for not accepting the transfer, Alexandra Sousa spoke of a “very strong population area, with a very, very fragile, very aged population” for which it is necessary to invest in “security”.

Without hiding her excitement about the situation, the resident of the neighborhood for 48 years left several questions: “Is the overnight room going to be built and what are the residents like? Will there be security, will there be cleaning, will there be police?” before claiming what the solution is for him: “this has to be transparent, it has to be communicated to the local population. It can’t just be the construction, it can’t just be the project that looks politically beautiful.”

To this end, he emphasized, “the people have to unite. The residents of this region have to unite. Because they already come here from everywhere to consume, they leave everything dirty, needles everywhere.”

Alexandre Sousa also defends that the council “create consumption rooms in the various parishes of the city”, thus creating the conditions to “integrate, find jobs, arrange training for these people. Integrate them into society”.

Local authority defends change

After receiving representatives of the movement, the president of the parish union, Pedro Teichgraber, stated that he was convinced that “the number of consumers will not increase because of the consumption room” which he believes to be a response “with more capacity”.

According to the mayor, the response “will not be limited to the consumption room, as is the case now”, remembering the vans that “provide services there and also street support where people are”.

“It is a solution that we want to defend users and the community, because I receive requests from citizens every day [a dizer] that people are sleeping, [que] they are consuming, consumer waste, consumer material, in the streets, in the gardens, on the sidewalks”, insisted Pedro Teichgraber.

Porto City Council argues that moving the assisted consumption room from Pasteleira to Aleixo aims to protect users and the community.

In the municipality’s response to the Advisory Committee to Support the Assembly Board, to which Lusa had access this Friday, the municipality considers the reasons presented for the change of this removable structure, and consequent social response, from Pasteleira to Aleixo to be “fully valid”, contested by residents in a petition that will be discussed at Monday’s Municipal Assembly.

The letter from the municipality reinforces that the decision to relocate the removable structure “does not represent (nor can it be interpreted as) a setback in relation to the intervention in Bairro do Aleixo nor does it constitute any reversal of the urban requalification process carried out in this location over the last decade”.

On the contrary, argues the municipality, the relocation of the supervised consumption room is “a structured intervention” that was “designed to prevent consumption in public spaces, reduce the health risks associated with this type of consumption and promote the referral of people who use drugs to healthcare, social support and reintegration”.