Your weekly news catch-up in Mallorca

In Ibiza on Friday last week, the British Consul Lloyd Milen, the Balearic tourism minister Iago Negueruela and others gathered to launch the latest joint campaign to promote the islands as a safe destination and to restate zero tolerance for "tourism of excesses". In presenting the 2023 Stick With Your Mates campaign, the consul highlighted the need to know the local rules and drew attention to an apparent 90% decrease in the number of the most serious incidents in Magalluf last year. The minister stressed the "firm commitment" to quality and safe tourism. The government, he said, is doing away with tourist excesses; the law "is bearing fruit".

Fifty people involved in Magalluf brawl

Absent from this gathering, obviously enough, was the Portuguese Consul. On Monday, the minister might have felt inclined to have a quiet word in his shell-like. Seven Portuguese citizens had been arrested, charged with having been responsible for kicking off a brawl in Magalluf that came to involve some fifty people. One person was seriously injured; five Guardia Civil officers needed medical treatment.

Tourism of excesses, or however you want to call drunkenness, misbehaviour and antisocial behaviour, isn't confined to specific nationalities. Of course it isn't. One of the worst incidents to have occurred in Mallorca in recent times was the death in 2021 of a Dutch citizen in Playa de Palma at the hands (or rather the boots) of other Dutch citizens. The seven Portuguese, it turned out, were staying in Arenal. Supporters of Sporting Clube de Portugal, they were in Mallorca for the final of the UEFA Futsal Champions League. Had this been a major football match, the security forces would probably have been keeping close tabs on any possible trouble. But futsal ... ?

The floating disco of Colonia Sant Jordi

Incidents can occur anywhere and involve anyone. The nationalities engaged in keeping residents of Colonia Sant Jordi up all night on Sunday haven't been identified. The nineteen boats that put on a thirteen-hour floating disco have been condemned as being symptomatic of tourism of excesses. But as the ABONE nightlife association has pointed out, Colonia Sant Jordi isn't subject to the tourism of excesses law. It is in fact one of the last resorts imaginable in this respect. Even if it were covered by the law, what could anyone do about the floating disco? Ses Salines police said they had no powers for what happens at sea and the Guardia Civil said that noise violations weren't their remit.

ABONE has highlighted numerous similar incidents, all of them illegal and all of them to the detriment of association members who abide by regulations, generate employment and pay taxes. The Council of Mallorca has responded by saying that it will be working closely with the Guardia's maritime service and other authorities, but ABONE and hotel associations (alarmed by guests being kept awake) are questioning the political will, especially that of town halls. But then town halls, as with their police forces, don't have the powers.

Objectify women? A huge fine and closure of the premises

In Calvia and on land, Magalluf's in particular, there seems to be no absence of political will in applying the tourism of excesses law. The owner of a club, the Stereo Temple, has described a potential town hall fine of up to 300,000 euros and a sealing-off of the premises as "a nonsense" and "discriminatory".

The case has arisen because a dancer was outside the club and visible from the street. The town hall considered this dancing to be in breach of an article in the law regarding the objectification and hyper-sexualisation of women. The owner, Biel Carbonell, claims discrimination on the grounds that precisely the same sort of dancing would go unpunished in that part of Magalluf to which the law's regulations don't apply. Other businesses are apparently indignant that they are being clobbered, having "invested heavily" in meeting demands for quality. An association of these businesses is being established.

"People cannot expect that tourists don't drink"

For the most part, the law has to do with business practices and not with what tourists get up to. A clear example of tourist behaviour relates to 'balconing', i.e. clambering over balconies or diving from balconies into pools. Tourists can be fined for this. Hotels can be as well, if they don't adopt measures to try and prevent it.

At one hotel in Playa de Palma, the Teide, the director has apologised to neighbours following reports about balconing by German tourists. The hotel applies the law in that all clients must sign a form which states that they will be expelled if they balcony hop or engage in antisocial behaviour. The director, Juan Manuel Ordinas, says that several people have been removed for breaches. "We try to avoid these situations. But we have to be realistic and understand that this is a hotel full of young people who come to have a good time, to enjoy holidays with parties, fun and alcohol. People cannot expect that tourists don't drink."

Losing Blue Flags - Does it matter?

More generally in Playa de Palma, the hoteliers are complaining about a "lamentable image" being conveyed to visitors because of a lack of beach services - parasols and sunloungers. The president of the association, José Antonio Fernández de Alarcón, says that these services should have been operational at Easter. (The usual reasons for delays of this type are that the Costas Authority is behind in renewing authorisation or that town halls are slow in tendering for concessions or a combination of both.)

To make matters worse, the hoteliers add, two Blue Flags have been lost this year - one for Arenal, the other for Cala Estancia. Three beaches and two marinas in Mallorca have in fact lost Blue Flags this year.

But how important is a Blue Flag? The number in Mallorca and the Balearics has declined significantly over the years, the value of Blue Flags having been openly questioned, including by the Balearic tourism ministry. A study by a doctor of geography and geology at the University of the Balearic Islands, Francesc Xavier Roig, argues that whereas Blue Flags made sense in the 1980s when there was far too much pollution, they are now no longer necessary because of legislation and town hall adoption of other more consistent quality management standards. "What difference is there between a beach with or without a flag? None."

Don't go throwing stones ...

In Soller, tourists certainly couldn't have been blamed for any excesses at an event for the Soller Fair - a DJ party at the football ground in Puerto Soller. Some youths started chucking stones at the stage. There were repeated requests for them to stop until finally a woman was hit above the eye and needed medical treatment. The police called an early halt to proceedings and cleared the ground.

Briton dies in Cala Mesquida

In Capdepera, the police were alerted last Saturday that a British couple had not met up with friends for a boat trip and that contact couldn't be made with them. The police went to a rural property in Cala Mesquida where they were staying. They found the couple. The man was dead, the woman still had a faint pulse and was rushed to Manacor Hospital. There had been a leak of carbon monoxide from a faulty refrigerator while they were asleep. The couple, who had arrived in Mallorca on Wednesday last week, had only been married a fortnight previously.

A hospital emergency and a robbery

The National Police in Palma are looking for two hooded men who robbed a villa on the exclusive Son Vida estate on Monday. They took valuables worth around 30,000 euros, the robbery - the police say - having been opportunistic. The robbers must have seen the two tenants of the villa leaving in an ambulance; the woman had suffered an accident. The property wasn't properly secured in the haste to get to hospital and the two more or less just walked in.

Death of a cyclist

The Guardia Civil are meanwhile in charge of the case of a 61-year-old motorcyclist whose Harley-Davidson crashed into three cyclists on Friday afternoon last week, causing the death of one of them. The motorcyclist was himself injured, and so analyses were taken at Inca Hospital. He tested positive for drugs.

He had lost control of the bike on a bend on the road between Pollensa and Lluc. A 43-year-old Polish citizen, Lesiak Andrzej Zbigniew, was taken to hospital in a critical condition but died. The motorcyclist appeared before an Inca court on Tuesday and was released on charges.