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By Humphrey Carter PALMA City Council is starting to draw up a contingency plan to combat a massive nationwide binge-drinking session which is being organised for April 8. Millions of e-mails are being sent out across the country calling on people to “drink until the body can't take anymore” in cities across the country. Here in Majorca, the location for the “record-breaking” drinking session is the Paseo Maritimo. Despite binge drinking in public places being illegal, it continues to happen every weekend across Spain. Palma city council is even considering opening up a sports centre to get the binge drinkers away from the Paseo and the city centre and into a contained and controlled area. The mayor of Palma Catalina Cirer said yesterday that the council is looking into organising weekend activities which will provide young people with an alternative to drinking but she also admitted that she is “saddened by the fact that young Majorcans want to help break the record for getting drunk than breaking some other record.” The council is very aware that binge drinking, “botellon” is part of modern culture “but unless we take some form of action, there is a risk of it escalating into a very dangerous game,” said councillor for public security Álvaro Gijón yesterday. In the e-mail, part of which the Bulletin has reproduced, it includes advice for people wishing to attend such as not to drink and drive and to clean up the mess (empties, glasses, bags of ice and soft drinks) when they leave. However, the e-mail is also calling on people from all across Majorca to head to Palma for the mass drinking session. It states that if a concert this summer in C'an Picafort can attract 40'000 people, so should the Palma sea front party. It also points out that by public binge drinking, revellers are saving themselves the entrance fee and price of drinks in the clubs while being able to carry out “meeting people” until five or six o'clock in the morning. Just what residents, never mind visitors staying in the five star hotels along the Paseo Maritimo, and boat owners in Palma need.