Spanish Mayor Bans Men From Bars

A girls' night out has become official policy in a small southern Spanish town after the mayor announced yesterday he would ban men from going out on a Thursday night.

The radical move by Javier Checa will see any men who go to bars in Torredonjimeno between 9pm and 2am on a Thursday evening fined by the local police.

Mr Checa has explained that he expects the town's men to stay at home on Thursdays to look after the children and do the washing up.

The women, on the other hand, are to be given a free run of the town's bars and night-clubs which, presumably, will be free of the opposite sex.

The mayor did not say whether men from other towns would be welcome.

Money from the fines will go towards groups that deal with domestic violence and equality between the sexes.

Mr Checa said he wanted to turn Torredonjimeno, which is near the city of Jaen, into "an international reference point" for sex equality.

"We have to make men aware of the responsibilities they have in the home. They don't just have a right to go out and drink beer with their friends, they also have to be a house-husband," he said.

News of the fines was met with dismay by men in the town, many of whom are used to whiling away the time before and after supper in the local bars.

"I don't see that the mayor can tell us when we should be able to go out for a beer," Jose Luis Jimenez complained to the state television TVE.

Mr Checa, a former newspaper editor, television producer and president of the Spanish retro dancing federation, was elected mayor in May.

The town had previously been governed by the communist-led United Left coalition.