For more than a century it has been a mecca for cooks – from the most humble to the elite of haute cuisine – but Barcelona's famous Boqueria market is fast becoming yet another no-go zone for residents as it is overwhelmed by tourists.

Stallholders complain that real shoppers can't get through the throngs of people who come to photograph but not to buy their wares. Now the association that runs the market is calling on the city council to curb the numbers of visitors, in particular the large groups led by tour and cruise operators.

Last year 70 million people visited the market. And Òscar Ubide, the market manager, says he has asked the city to negotiate with tour operators to avoid bringing in large groups on Friday and Saturday mornings, when there is the greatest number of local shoppers.

Ubide said it is not a question of banning tourists, only for some controls to be imposed. The market is losing its character as traditional stalls give way to juice bars and takeaways, he explains. The market sells everything from fresh fish and meat to fruit and vegetables as well as a wide range of dried fruit and nuts. It also boasts a stall that only sells foie gras and, until recently, one that sold edible insects.

Tourism is good news for vendors of olives and charcuterie, the sort of goods tourists like to take home as souvenirs, but a nuisance for fishmongers and butchers, whose customers are put off by the crowds. After 10am on any given day it is virtually impossible to shop in the Boqueria.

Raimond Blasi, the city council's business spokesman, said he would refer the market's requests to the tourism department and ask it to negotiate with tour operators. He added that the city could only make recommendations and that regulation would be "difficult".

However, the authorities are under growing pressure to control the number of tourists in the city, which has grown from 1.7 million in 1990 to an estimated 10 million this year. Xavier Trias, the Barcelona mayor, is facing a new challenge in the shape of the grassroots movement Guanyem Barcelona (Let's win back Barcelona), which attracted over 2,000 people to its inaugural meeting last week. Like Podemos, the Spanish party that won five seats in the European elections only weeks after its launch, Guanyem Barcelona seeks to draw on widespread disaffection with the political status quo and the perception that the city authorities treat Barcelona as a commodity to be marketed and not a place for people to live.