Bobbies in beachwear
It would be fascinating to know what plain clothes the four Calvia plainclothes coppers are wearing. Union Jack shorts for Magalluf? A Celtic football shirt for Santa Ponsa? A Munich Oktoberfest t-shirt for Paguera? We'll probably never find out, as they wouldn't really be plainclothes officers if we did know.
Whatever garb they are donning, the town hall is determined to let us know how successful they are proving to be by issuing information if not quite on a daily basis, then at least twice a week. We therefore learned that the police-in-disguise had made 44 arrests in the space of only a few days. By the time you read this, the number may well have gone up, such is the Calvia communication.
It's all part, of course, of the new lot at the town hall sending out messages as to their being tough on resort crime, tough on the causes of resort crime. Tougher than the last lot, that is. Oh, and letting the Spanish government know that there would be even higher arrest figures if regulations allowed for more than four bobbies in beachwear. (You will doubtless be aware that the Spanish government is of a different political persuasion to the newly installed executive councillors in Calvia.)
Anyway, hats off. If this measure succeeds in a reduction in crime and drives the crims away, then all well and good. The only problem being that they may decide to relocate to other resorts.
The party (boat) is over
Have any of the undercover officers been sent on special assignments to net illegal party boat operators? If they have, they will need to ensure that they blend in and get so bladdered that they will have forgotten why they are on the party boat. By the sounds of it, though, more conventional police work is being undertaken. A company operating illegal party boats from Magalluf and back has been collared and slapped with a fine of 161,000 euros by the town hall.
The investigations involved discovering that alcohol was being served on board. Never? Really? And that some clients were "slightly worse for wear" before even boarding the boat. Who would have thought?
The thing is that you do have to be pretty dumb if you think you can get away with this sort of activity. The tourism of excesses law, integrated to the letter in Calvia ordinance, isn't exactly vague when it comes to the subject of party boats. Advertising and organisation in areas covered by the law, e.g. a substantial part of Magalluf, are banned and there are fines for very serious infringements of up to 600,000 euros.
Enough is enough in Palma
In Palma, they could probably do with entire armies of plainclothes police. As well as the tourist and nightlife areas, the city does have its dodgy neighbourhoods, but it is the former which attract the most attention. This is hard to ignore when, as an example, a Dutch tourist in Arenal decides to do a number two on the head of a fellow tourist fast asleep on the beach wall.
This gross act has led some to wonder if it represents the tipping point for Playa de Palma rather like the infamous mamading video did in Magalluf. That was nine years ago, but the outrage did result in tougher bylaws and eventually the tourism of excesses legislation. This does also apply to that part of Playa de Palma where the excesses are typically perpetrated, which basically means Arenal. But there have been a number of voices saying that while Magalluf is being cleaned up (to a point), things are in fact getting worse in Playa de Palma. Young tourist drunkenness prevails.
Please be quiet, residents trying to sleep
There are problems with excess elsewhere in Palma, not all of them caused by tourists. The Paseo Marítimo, residents are saying, is becoming "a dump". There are people partying until seven in the morning. "They get drunk and end up looking for doorways as places to sleep. They're vandals."
The Paseo Marítimo has long been associated with nightlife, but there didn't used to be the issues there now are, and these have spread to residential areas that were once spared the excesses. For the residents, the solutions - as ever - are more police and more fines. And so they are in other nighttime parts of the city, such as La Lonja and Santa Catalina. But for now, the town hall's remedy is an initiative it has launched with the restaurants association - posters asking people to keep the noise down and respect residents' rights to some peace and quiet. The president of Palma's federation of residents associations was blunt in her assessment of this: "A poster won't fix anything."
Red flags on the Bay of Palma
In the Llucmajor Arenal, meanwhile, the heavy rain last Friday led to a red flag being raised at the beach. The source of contamination was the torrent that runs into the sea. The town hall didn't specify where it had come from, but it was clear that it wasn't the same source as is always the case in Palma. Arenal is some distance from the usual suspect beaches such as Can Pere Antoni which were also red-flagged when the rain fell and untreated wastewater was washed into the sea from the network. Hefty investment is being spent on sorting this problem out once and for all, but there is still work to do. We can expect more red flags in Palma, if not in Arenal.
At Can Pere Antoni, it was pleasing to note that neither the rain nor any despicable human behaviour had disturbed the turtle's nest. The eggs had been laid in June, the first time that a loggerhead turtle's nest had been recorded in Mallorca, A number of them hatched last Sunday and Monday. Agents from the environment ministry took the baby turtles to a facility in Andratx, where they will be monitored before being released into the sea.
Trapped in the mountains
As is always the case, inclement weather in high summer resulted in traffic congestion as holidaymakers looked for alternatives to the beach and pool. Palma was logjammed and there was chaos in the centre of Soller, where parking was impossible. The traffic heading to Soller was so bad that tailbacks of some thirteen kilometres formed. The Guardia Civil closed the tunnel temporarily as they didn't want jams inside it.
Residents took to social media in denouncing the fact that Soller "has become a theme park" and lamenting that "it is very sad to have to queue for two hours to enter your own town".
In Sa Calobra, it wasn't traffic 'saturation' as such that caused total chaos last Saturday; it was a broken-down coach. There can be few worse places in Mallorca for a coach to block the road in both directions than at the access to Sa Calobra. The nature of the road made it extremely difficult to enable dozens of trapped vehicles to escape and for the mechanic service to reach the coach.
A Royal Christmas in Palma maybe?
Back in Palma, Portixol was one of the areas of Palma identified as having issues with noise at night. But the only noise last weekend was the sound of cameras. Spain's Royal Family had dined out at Mia, a new restaurant run by a favourite of the family, Guillermo Cabot. And so the cameras were at the ready as King Felipe, Queen Letizia, Sofia the Queen Mother, her sister Irene of Greece, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia left the building. The speciality of the house at Mia is fresh fish.
The royals now only come to Mallorca in the summer. They used to spend Easter at the Marivent Palace as well. But might they wish to spend the occasional Christmas there as well? The city's retailers would naturally be delighted if they were to and to patronise the Christmas markets.
There is a drive to make Palma the Mediterranean centre for tourism attracted by Christmas markets and to encourage visitors to choose Palma rather than Austrian and German cities. To this end, there is to be a redesign of stalls, a strict emphasis on typical Mallorcan products and an enhancement of the atmosphere. As to the products, the president of one of the retailers associations made clear: "We don't want imported products made in China."