Maria Rosa Fortesa is a member of the recently established Paseo Marítimo residents association. She wonders what's happening with Palma and with the Paseo Marítimo. "It's a dump, a real mess. Arenal and Can Pastilla have already been degraded. What's to become of Palma?"
This past weekend, she says, there were once more people who were singing, shouting, making the place filthy. "And now they're sleeping in doorways. They're vandals."
Residents maintain that more and more frequently they experience the consequences of the excesses of nightlife and a lack of surveillance. "They party until seven in the morning. They get drunk and end up looking for doorways as places to sleep."
It is not acceptable, Fortesa adds, that there should be people in a residential area who "sing you serenades". She refers to one night when drums and a keyboard were produced and there was an improvised concert at four in the morning.
Noting that this doesn't just happen at weekends, the association's president, Antoni Ruiz says: "After the pandemic, things changed radically. The botellón (street drinking party) is back."
The Paseo Marítimo has long been associated with nightlife. Generally speaking, there weren't too many problems in the past, especially once there was a clampdown on the botellón. Maria Rosa Fortesa explains that the old Tito's nightclub (now Lío) marked the point where a quiet residential area was separated. But it's now "one great entertainment area".
The residents feel that people respect authority less than they used to, but they are critical of the police. They are told that there aren't enough officers. There is a sense of "total neglect." Fines could be dissuasive, but without a police presence the residents don't see how it is possible to solve the problems.
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Donald, true. But that was an extreme case. My point is that in countries where arrest by the police is feared, rowdy citizen and visitor behaviour is far less tolerated and persons causing anti-social behaviour are whisked off the streets and into custody pretty smartish. I'm advocating for greater police powers and judicial penalties in Mallorca.
Charles Dalrymple-ChumleyThe streets of france were ablaze no more than 4 weeks ago.
The way to eradicate all of this is through the police. You simply wouldn't see this feral anti-social behaviour in, for example, major cities in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, France and other such countries where the police are heavy-handed and it's not a pleasant experience being arrested. Re-train and re-brief Mallorca's police force and all will come good.