Noise in Santa Catalina over the weekends

Local police are seen in the Santa Catalina area due to excess noise on the weekends. | Pere Bota

Humphrey CarterPalma20/05/2022 10:03
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The word on the street is that Palma City Council is turning a blind eye to the weekend nighttime shenanigans in certain popular party areas of the city such as Santa Catalina or the Paseo Mallorca in order to give bar and restaurant owners the opportunity to claw back some of their losses incurred during the pandemic. At the same time, with elections looming next year, perhaps the council feels the need to keep local businesses on side.

If so, it’s a dangerous gamble because while, on the one hand, the business community will be happy, on the other local residents are not, and who has the larger slice of the vote?

Ironically, it rather smacks of how the pandemic was handled by the centre right Partido Popular in Madrid. The controversial President of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso was reticent in cracking down as tightly as the rest of Spain, so much so that Madrid became a mecca for young French people wanting to party. And when it came to the elections, she won hands down because she let the bars stay open and the people to party. I would hate to think that the left-wing cocktail in power in Palma is following the PP’s example. The situation has got so bad that, apart from the mountain of complaints from residents, Palma council appears to be split over how the problem is being managed.