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Alcohol on the beach in Palma in the summer of 2023: No more drinking tourism – the place should become a “sustainable and family-friendly all-year-round destination”.
Photo: Clara Margais / dpa
Palma's mayor Jaime Martinez has announced a comprehensive regulation that will make "uncivilized behavior" in public expensive.
According to a statement from the town hall, the fines amount to up to 3,000 euros for particularly serious violations. The sum can be charged for, for example, spraying graffiti, peeing wildly or spitting in public places.
According to the “Mallorca Zeitung”, the planned regulation applies to the entire urban area and is therefore not limited to tourist hotspots such as Ballermann 6. It is not yet in force; according to Mallorca Magazine, Mayor Martinez announced that it should happen by the summer.
Drinking bouts are supposed to be expensive
The planned catalog is comprehensive and regulates, for example, fines for improper use of e-scooters, shell games and the illegal posting of flyers.
Drinking alcohol in public should cost money if it can "seriously disrupt social coexistence," said the town hall. This is the case, for example, when consumption is “massively carried out” in groups or is communicated to the outside world in a way that is “degrading”. In such cases, according to a statement from the town hall, a distinction is made between serious and very serious violations, which can cost up to 1,500 or up to 3,000 euros. The vague formulations are obviously aimed at bingeing on the Ballermann.
However, the project is not new in this respect: Mayor Martinez had already announced at the ITB tourism trade fair in Berlin at the beginning of March that he would put an end to the drinking bouts by imposing high fines. "This is not a declaration of intent, we will implement it," he said, according to "Mallorca Magazin." The police will get new positions for this. He wants to make Playa de Palma a “sustainable and family-friendly year-round destination.”
They have been fighting for a different image on this stretch of beach for a long time. Last year, restaurateurs and hoteliers along the party mile announced that they would limit drinking on promenades.