In a single week, Centar municipality inspected ten active building sites. Six of them were fined 1,300 euros each for breaching public order rules and the Public Cleanliness Act. At three locations, blockers and posts illegally installed on public land were removed - those metal pieces citizens and companies use to reserve themselves a parking spot on the pavement.

The inspections also ran in the late afternoon, when construction work quietens down and the consequences for public space become most visible: dust, tracked mud, blocked pavements.

"The inspection services are out in the field. Alongside routine supervision, we are also carrying out extraordinary inspections for environmental protection, pollution prevention, maintaining public cleanliness and ensuring safe pavements and streets. We will not tolerate the degradation of public space," said Centar mayor Goran Gerasimovski.

So far, so good. Now for the noise.

The same municipality recently boasted of being the first in the country to give citizens direct digital access to noise measurements. Thirty devices were installed at the locations where Centar residents most often reported a problem, with the readings available through the municipal GIS portal. Every reading is colour-coded - red means the legal limit has been exceeded.

It sounds like a real step forward. This is where the problem starts.

Those measurements are not evidence. The municipality explains that monitoring data is indicative - information that somewhere is too loud, but not grounds for an inspector to turn up and issue a fine. To reach a fine, a citizen has to physically file a complaint at the municipal Registry.

The Registry is closed at weekends

And here the whole structure collapses on its own.

Most parties in bars happen on Saturday night. Most breaches of the noise limits - also then. A citizen who opens the GIS portal at midnight on Saturday and sees a red dot above his own roof is holding a document worth nothing until he carries it to the Registry. And the Registry opens on Monday.

Until then, inspectors cannot go out. And when they do, it may be two or more days after the music played.

Citizens, incidentally, only see the noise measured the previous day on the portal. For the entire municipality, two inspectors handle this whole area.

The result: two bars fined

From 1 January to today, according to the municipality, several noise measurements were carried out. Some did not exceed the legal limit. Some brought verbal warnings for a "first mistake". A few bars were issued orders requiring noise reduction and payment of costs.

Fined - two bars.

The citizens' initiative "For a Decent Kapistec", which organised a protest three months ago over precisely this loud music, reacted sharply: "The noise measuring stations finally started working. We expect the mayor to present this as another of his successes, when in fact it is a complete defeat - there is not one measuring point where the noise came in within the legally prescribed limits. Now we have official proof of the noise, and the law allows the inspector to ban those who are terrorising people from operating at all!"

The two cases say the same thing

Six building sites paid 1,300 euros each because an inspector showed up, saw it and wrote it down. That works.

On noise, the municipality bought 30 devices, installed them, connected them to a portal and opened the database to citizens - and then made its own data unusable for its own inspectors. That is not a shortage of technology. That is a procedure that cancels the technology out.

Thirty devices measure in real time. The decision is made on the basis of a piece of paper delivered on Monday.