BEACH-GOERS hoping for a break from health and safety regulations are being advised to think again.
Numerous Spanish authorities are starting to introduce new bylaws or are enforcing rulings previously ignored.
The clampdown includes curbing activities such as playing loud music, drinking alcohol… and even having sex.
Benidorm, for example, has ruled that anyone caught having sex on the beach will be fined 750 euros.
The celebrated eastern Spanish resort has also decided to close its beach between the hours of midnight and 7am to prevent any late night partying.
But it is not just at night. Beach-goers face similar problems during the day, with anyone playing sport outside the specified zone, bringing pets to the beach, drinking alcohol or erecting a sunshade at improper times could now face fines of up to 300 euros.
It is claimed that these draconian measures are an attempt by the council to clean up the resort’s reputation, erasing its reputation for liberal pursuits.
“Benidorm, for example, has ruled that anyone caught having sex on the beach will be fined 750 euros.”
They are not alone. Other coastal resorts announcing plans for tougher regulation include Salobrena and Almunecar, in Granada, Valencia and Tossa de Mar.
In one resort, L´Escala, on the Costa Brava, police will step in if holidaymakers light up cigarettes.
An Andalucía based newspaper should know that the resorts are actually called Salobreña and Almuñécar.
Do you employ proofreaders?
Possibly they just wanted english speakers to find the page – it only came up in my search because it was spelt (without the ñ) the same way that 90% + of english spell the names and search for them. I have a website in english and choose to use Salobrena (Almunecar) almost without exception.
A simple spell checker would pick it up too.
Oh and a shame about those new restrictions 750 euros – ouch, but may be worth the risk.
It would appear that the Spanish authorities are determined to do away with the very things that, since the 1960s, attracted foreigners to visit and come and live in Spain.
Spanish exports are negligible, and foreign money is still the life blood of the Spanish economy.
Already we have seen a huge fall in the number of foreign nationals buying property in Spain after the homes of British ex-pats were demolished (whichever official allowed that to happen should be locked up. That one PR disaster wiped out five decades of tourist promotion and contributed substantially to the decimation the building and real estate industries).
Two things attract foreigners to come and visit or move to Spain: the good weather, and the free and easy Spanish lifestyle. Brits, in particular, see Spain – or they did until recently – as a place to go to escape from the over-regulated and socially restrictive UK.
In Spain the banks were more flexible, you could ride your motorcycle without a crash helmet (dumb, perhaps, but the choice was yours), you weren’t spied upon 24 hours a day by police CCTV cameras – and yes, you could even have sex on the beach without having to worry about going to jail or seeing your picture in the News of the World.
Now Spain is “cleaning up” – which in reality means it is becoming more like those countries whose natives have for decades been envious of the Spanish lifestyle!
CCTV cameras are sprouting up everywhere, like cancerous growths. You can’t deposit money in the bank without being cross-questioned on where it came from. Ugly UK-style roadside barriers are appearing at formerly picturesque locations (the Campo de Principe in Realejo being a notable example). Everywhere you look in Spain, rules and regulations are being tightened up, and more and more restrictions are being imposed on people (and especially non-residents) at all levels of society.
The country already has the highest unemployment levels in the EU, but instead of making the country more attractive to foreigners – and to foreign investors – the Spanish government seems to be doing everything in its power to deter foreigners from visiting, buying property or setting up businesses in Spain.
This might be a good time to remind the Spanish authorities just where most of the money in Spain originates, and why foreigners were attracted to the country in the first place.
By evicting foreigners from their Spanish homes and bulldozing the properties they paid for with their life savings – and all in the glare of the international news spotlight – the Spanish government has already thrown out Spain’s most important economic baby with the bathwater.
And now, instead of taking measures to attract more visitors and investors from oversea (they could start by doing something about the steadily increasing number of robberies with violence, particularly in Granada), the authorities are “clamping down” on people who have come to Spain to enjoy its liberal lifestyle.
Talk about killing the goose.
The problem is the tenacity of the spanish, they are determined to stay in spain. When the economy is bad, like when franco was in power, most stayed. Living conditions bad, yet they survived. To fix spain you have to sink it. The autonomies suck, socialism, weak structure. corruption, dancing all day and government pays, sounds very much like the UK or US. Our taxes pays for lazy people who dance all day. Spain needs to fall another country should take it over. Maybe France, they should take over portugal too, but you might be upset, prices would go up skyhigh and spain would change to a Nice like location. Kick out the spanish to Morocco and move the french, german and english over.