Winter blues

If you are coming to Santa Ponsa for the winter and staying with friends or renting an apartment, as many people do, you can't get tickets for the “Grand Fiesta” because they won't give you them.

This is further compounded by the fact that although other hotels have tickets, again if you are not staying in that hotel, they won't give you tickets.

Further, they don't even like to give their own guests tickets for the “Grand Fiesta” because they want to keep their guests in their hotel buying food, drink, etc., in their hotel and not elsewhere.

The most galling aspect is that if, like me, you live in Santa Ponsa in your own place, even though it's your tax money that's paying for the “Grand Fiesta”, you can never get a ticket because clearly you won't be staying in a hotel.

It's total madness as it's largely the resident population that keeps Santa Ponsa going through the winter, using local shops and services, yet we can't get tickets.

Santa Ponsa is a ghost town this year and tonight (at time of writing) the “Grand Fiesta” will be half empty and food thrown away as usual because people who would like tickets and would attend can't get them.

I know others like me who live here who express the same views. Why can't tickets be given out at the Santa Ponsa tourist office on a one person, one ticket, basis to stop one person asking for two, three, or more tickets? It seems simple enough to me; that way if you want a ticket you go down early enough to get one, then at least it's down to you.

I wrote to the Mayor of Calvia twice about this last year and never received any reply, they don't seem to give a damn.
On a totally different matter (slightly), in the UK, Germany, Norway, et al, towns all over these countries put on bonfires, music, fireworks, etc., for New Year's Eve but nothing in Santa Ponsa. How can they expect people to come when they don't provide anything for them to come for?

To friends in the UK who complain about the over-commercialization of Christmas and the New Year, I tell them to come here because they would never know it's not just another day.

The Mayor should bear in mind that I and others chose to live here, we like this island, we like the people, but that does not mean that we can't be critical when it's called for.

Sean Dobson
Santa Ponsa