Yesterday, the vice-president of the Balearics and minister for tourism, Biel Barcelo, revealed that a total of 43,000 euros in fines have been handed out over the past few days.
According to government sources three restaurants, a hotel and a nightclub have been fined as part of an on going corruption probe into the resort.
In the case of the hotel, it was fined 20,000 euros for over occupation.
The three restaurants and the nightclub were handed fines of between 3,000 and 12,000 euros and the inspections are going to continue throughout the summer to ensure that standards and laws are being conformed with.
Apart from the ongoing corruption probe in the Playa de Palma, which was the scene, yet again, of a violent clash involving some 60 people between a gang of German Neo Nazis and a group of fans of a rival German football team, Barcelo explained that the heightened inspections are part of a campaign to crackdown on antisocial tourism. The gang of Neo Nazis have been causing a series of problems and a wave of violence in the resort over the past month and Barcelo called on all sectors of the community to help prevent further violent clashes between holiday makers in the resort.
Only two years ago, the most wanted and dangerous German Hells Angels Chapter was busted in the Playa de Palma.
The gang was wanted for people trafficking, prostitution, arms and drug dealing and extortion.
“We don’t want this kind of tourism, we don’t want holiday makers who don’t know how to behave in a civil manor and the main aim of this campaign is to stamp this out,” Barcelo said.
“The majority of the hotels are on board with the government catering for quality tourists, but there are still establishments selling alcohol far too cheaply and this provokes the kind of tourism we don’t want, we’re just not interested,” the tourism minister stressed.
Barcelo called for more police to be deployed to the Playa de Palma in order to secure the safety of residents and visitors and if people are still getting away with drinking in the street, for example, there clearly are not enough people to enforce the law on the beat,” he said.
