Editorial: Good citizens

THE Palma city council made banners headlines just before the start of the summer season when they announced a major crackdown on bad behaviour. Their good citizen plan aimed to tackle the ills of the Playa de Palma as well, which is the principal tourist resort in the city. But the plan at the moment is not worth the paper it is printed on. Now, the council announced that drinking from glass bottles on the beach would be banned (hasn´t happened), there would be a crackdown on illegal street vendors (hasn´t happened), German tourists would no longer be allowed to drink lethal mixtures of alcohol through a straw from a bucket (hasn´t happened) and the prostitution problem is as bad it was last year. So why hasn´t it happened? What has happened to the city council crackdown which made banner headlines in Britain and Germany? Well I think the good old Palma city council got cold feet.  The plan was quietly dropped. But why? It is a mystery but there must be a good reason. I suspect that once the council did their numbers they found that enforcing their plan would not only cost a small fortune it would mean that hundreds of extra police officers would have to be recruited. Now, obviously the Palma council are looking ahead to next year´s local elections and there is concern locally that some of our tourist resorts have become rather lawless. The plan was a good one but unfortunately it was far too ambitious.