Delgado electoral promise rubbished

BUSINESS people involved in Calvia's leisure and entertainment sector and the Association of Tourist Shopkeepers (Acotur) have rubbished the electoral promises of Mayor Carlos Delgado, to get rid of ticket touts and extend the opening hours of pubs, music bars and discotheques. During a meeting in a well known restaurant in Son Caliu they expressed their “total and absolute rejection” of the Mayor's proposal to do away with touts distributing propaganda in the streets and to allow the owners of pubs, bars and clubs to open and close when they wish. As an alternative to the banning of ticket touts, both the leisure and entertainment sector and Acotur proposed a reduction in the number of publicity agents and demanded strict compliance with the municipal laws approved during the current legislature. Both groups accused Delgado and his deputy mayor of the Citizen Security department, Bartomeu Bonafe, of having been incapable of enforcing their own laws during their term of office. Both groups also said that the banning of the ticket touts would not take them off the streets, but would encourage the appearance of equally illegal ticket touts who had been operating for the last few years with the local police turning a blind eye to them. With regard to the extension of hours, representatives of the public establishments warned that the application of this measure would be seen as a green light for “after hours” parties and “raves”. Events such as these would, by their very nature, encourage the sale and consumption of mind altering drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, they added.
Sources from one of the political parties also warned that the liberalising of hours, as well as encouraging these activities, would directly oppose the need to direct the tourist industry towards new models which are more sustainable and of greater quality.