The Oktoberfest, the Cologne Carnival and the fire brigade festival in Kogl near Tulln have two things in common: Due to unprecedented alcohol abuse, these events more or less regularly result in annoying, disgusting and often criminal consequences. However, in Munich, on the Rhine and also in Lower Austria, after a few days, or at the latest after a few weeks, it is all over. However wild and occasionally embarrassing the respective excesses may be, their temporal limitation is a consoling prospect that should hardly be underestimated.
Many residents of Mallorca have to live without this consolation. Even if there are seasonal and local fluctuations in the intensity of the drinking terror: year in and year out, drunk tourists bawl and grope, crawl and vomit, mope and pee around the Balearic island without any rhyme or reason. And not exclusively in some extraterritorial holiday ghettos, but among the locals, on their doorsteps, on their beaches, in their bars. Citizens’ initiatives and environmental organizations want to demonstrate in Palma de Mallorca at the weekend against the excesses of tourism on the island, which definitely include public drinking parties.
The island government, for its part, has once again reacted rather helplessly to this decades-old but increasingly worsening grievance. In the future, alcohol consumption in public will be officially prohibited around the Ballermann and in other party zones on Mallorca. Anyone caught on the beach or in the shopping street with an open can of whiskey and cola can receive a fine of up to 1,500 euros. The key word is probably: can. The checks will probably take place sporadically.
It wasn’t that long ago that this was the epitome of holiday romance: going to the beach in the evening with a few people and three bottles of wine or ten bottles of beer, lighting a campfire, telling each other stories and, increasingly, nonsense, having a little snog, going under Swim with the stars in the sea, but don’t bother anyone uninvolved too much.
In the meantime, however, special regulations have to be issued because more and more people are lacking any measure or goal. It’s no longer just about staggering tourists, but about fatal accidents because drunk holidaymakers keep falling from their hotel balconies. Some people can’t find their room key, but they think they can remember leaving the balcony door open and therefore overestimate their talent for climbing facades. Others think they can dive from the fifth floor into the pool, and others lose simply the balance.
Does prevention help? It’s worth trying. Perhaps the Mallorcans should impose fines for a specific purpose: to finance trips to the places where their tormentors come from – and to really let it all hang out there. In the Old Testament style: per mille for per mille. Perhaps then at least some of the drunk tourists will see the light.
