In the early morning of September 29, every illegal stall vanished from the stretch between the Mavrovka shopping centre and Bit Pazar, along Krste Petkov Misirkov Boulevard. Inspectors from the Food and Veterinary Agency, together with City of Skopje municipal inspectors, the State Market Inspectorate and the police, seized around 500 kilograms of food, mostly fruit and vegetables, and removed all the trading equipment that had been standing on the pavements and bike lanes.

"All illegal stalls have been removed, most of them selling fruit and vegetables," the Agency said. City of Skopje municipal inspectors, they added, will issue misdemeanour penalties to the vendors.

The operation was anything but quiet. Numerous police vehicles were parked on the road, the boulevard was barely passable, and the traffic jam spilled into the surrounding streets. The vendors, who every Tuesday and Thursday set up their stalls even at bus stops, were nowhere to be seen that morning - and neither were those who sold clothes and all sorts of other goods next to them.

The same day, the Agency also announced an operation carried out the day before: together with the Gostivar police department, 150 kilograms of expired meat with no label and of unknown origin were seized on a private property in the village of Chajle. The meat was destroyed at the Rusino landfill.

The illegal stalls at Bit Pazar did not pop up yesterday. Anyone who has walked down that boulevard knows the pavement there has long belonged to the stalls, not to pedestrians. So the question is not whether the operation was needed, but what happens next Tuesday. If the inspectors don't come back, this one-off morning sweep will end up as just another photo for a press release.