The Oktoberfest, the Cologne Carnival and the fire brigade festival in Kogl near Tulln have two things in common: Due to unprecedented alcohol abuse, these events more or less regularly result in annoying, disgusting and often criminal consequences. However, in Munich, on the Rhine and also in Lower Austria, after a few days, or at the latest after a few weeks, it is all over. However wild and occasionally embarrassing the respective excesses may be, their temporal limitation is a consoling prospect that should hardly be underestimated.
Many residents of Mallorca have to live without this consolation. Even if there are seasonal and local fluctuations in the intensity of the drinking terror: year in, year out, drunken tourists yell and grope, shout and vomit, rant and urinate senselessly on the Balearic island. And not only in some extraterritorial holiday ghettos, but among the locals, in front of their front doors, on their beaches, in their bars. Citizens’ initiatives and environmental organizations want to demonstrate in Palma de Mallorca this weekend against the excesses of tourism on the island, which definitely include public drinking parties.
The island government, for its part, has once again reacted quite helplessly to this decades-old but increasingly serious problem. In the future, drinking alcohol in public around Ballermann and in other party zones on Mallorca will officially be banned. Anyone caught with an open can of whisky and coke on the beach or in the shopping street can be fined up to 1,500 euros. The key word is probably: can. The checks will probably be carried out sporadically.
:Barcelona from above
In the spring sun, it is particularly beautiful above the rooftops of the Catalan metropolis – and not nearly as crowded as the streets. A scenic tour.
It wasn’t that long ago that this was the epitome of holiday romance: going to the beach in the evening with a few people and three bottles of wine or ten bottles of beer, lighting a campfire, telling each other stories and, increasingly, nonsense, making out a little, swimming in the sea under the stars, but not getting on anyone’s nerves too much.
But now special regulations have to be issued because more and more people are losing all sense of proportion and purpose. It is no longer just about staggering tourists, but about fatal accidents because drunken holidaymakers keep falling from their hotel balconies. Some cannot find their room key, but think they remember leaving the balcony door open, and overestimate their ability to climb facades with a blood alcohol level of 3 per mille; others think they can jump from the fifth floor into the pool, and still others simply lose their balance.
Does prevention help? It’s worth a try. Perhaps the Mallorcans should impose fines for a specific purpose: to finance trips to the places where their tormentors come from – and to really let it all hang out there. In the Old Testament style: per mille for per mille. Perhaps then at least some of the drunk tourists will see the light.