Magaluf businesses sick and tired of Brits destroying their ‘paradise’

Boozy Brits urinating in the streets, partygoers having sex outside restaurants and drugs being ‘sold like popcorn’ – this is the Magaluf that local business owners are sick and tired of.

After the Balearic Islands’ government launched a fresh crackdown on booze-fuelled holidays this week, businesses in Majorca have today hit out at tourists destroying their ‘paradise’, declaring: ‘It’s gone on too long.’

They accused drunken Brits of treating the ‘beautiful’ island with no respect and claimed the authorities were not doing enough to help – despite enforcing stricter drinking rules.

Sergio Taltavull, whose family own the Casa Diego restaurant in Magaluf, said: ‘It’s pretty bad. It’s all about drinking and partying, there is no families. We need more families. It’s all about the culture of getting drunk and partying.

‘Most of the tourists treat the island very badly. I have seen the degradation over the years, it’s very bad.

The 32-year-old, whose restaurant was away from the chaos on the strip, said the government ‘had to bring the rules in’, adding: ‘It’s gone on too long and we have to live here.

‘I have worked here all my life, I am from Mallorca. The island is paradise, but we have to change the tourist culture.

‘The government is trying, but let’s see if it works. We want more families, tourists and less drunk people and less partying. We want what we had before.’

Partygoers in Palma, Llucmajor and Magaluf in Majorca and San Antonio in Ibiza now face penalties of between €500 and €1,500 (£430 and £1,290) if their street drinking ‘disrupts coexistence, involves crowds or deteriorates the tranquillity of the environment’.

Party boats are no longer permitted to get closer than one nautical mile (1.852 km) of the designated areas and they have been banned from picking up or dropping off passengers.

In an attempt to toughen up the islands’ 2020 legislation, shops selling alcohol in areas of ‘excessive tourism’ must now completely close between 9.30pm and 8am.

One video showed two female British tourists fight each other in a Majorcan tourist resort. 

Last night, as the tougher sanctions came into force, partying Brits vowed to defy the crackdown and accused Majorca of trying to ‘kill’ Magaluf.

In Magaluf on Sunday, Ariana Riesquo-Tomos, who has owned the Restaurant Pizzeria with her Italian husband for 10 years, told MailOnline: ‘Most of the island is only for tourism. Brits come here for the alcohol and the mess that we offer here in Mallorca.’

She said she would prefer to see more families and less Brits coming and drinking and taking drugs.

Ms Riesquo said the island was beautiful ‘but it’s not good when you see tourists with alcohol in their hands all day’.

She added: ‘They leave without paying, they take drugs in the bathroom and they are a little aggressive – but not all of them of course.’

The restaurant owner said the rules did not go far enough ‘but something is better than nothing.’

She wants to see drinks limited for tourists and revealed: ‘When I come to work I see people drinking or sleeping outside the restaurant at 8am in the morning. It’s not nice.’

Restaurant owner Sharon Green, who is originally from the UK but has lived and worked in Majorca for 40 years, said: ‘The BCM nightclub closes at 6am in the morning and then they all walk past here when they go home. We then come on a Sunday morning and they wee in the corner or they do number two’s or they have sex in the corner.

‘People come to Magaluf and think Magaluf is free and you can do what they want and nobody says nothing. These people don’t do it where they live, do they?’

Ms Green, who owns the Meson Can Miguel restaurant with her husband Raphael, added: ‘They treat it very disrespectfully and they walk around half-naked which they shouldn’t be allowed to do. It’s more the girls. They walk round in their little bikinis with everything out and that shouldn’t be allowed.

‘They say boys can’t walk around without t-shirts on which is ridiculous when the girls can walk round naked. They get drunk and they cause damage.

‘I wouldn’t put it down to the Brits, it’s tourists in general. Most youngsters when they are in a group and they drink they cause problems because they are very brave. When they are on their own they are like little lambs.’

Ms Green, originally from Essex, said that her main customers are people coming for food because they are not on the main strip.

‘British people is the least we get,’ she added. ‘We get everyone else, Italians, French, German. We do steaks and good food and they don’t want to pay €26 for a fillet steak, they want a kebab or a pizza.’

Lory Jitariu, who opened the El Cordito restaurant away from the Magaluf strip with her husband Christian in 2020, said: ‘It is a beautiful island, and you walk down the strip and it’s awful.’

The Romanian couple, whose restaurant used to be a brothel, said it was very hard to start the business ‘because nobody comes here to eat. Everybody comes for drink and drugs,’ she added. ‘This is the truth.

‘If you are going outside of Magaluf it seems a bit normal but here, nobody eats. We have clients from other areas, Palma Nova, Palma, but around here not yet. We are still hoping.

‘They are not treating the island well, they are destroying the island. They are not coming to see the island – this is the last thing. The only thing they are coming here is for drink and drugs.

‘The families are afraid to come here. They see people on the street selling drugs like popcorn and the drunk people, it’s difficult for a family with children to come here.’

Ms Jitariu said that potential customers are avoiding the area because of its reputation.

‘This building used to be filled with traffickers and prostitutes. They are starting to come over again for the season,’ she explained.

‘We had a brothel here, now it’s a supermarket. Our restaurant was also a brothel when we bought it. It was a mess. It was awful.

‘In my opinion, Magaluf should be totally different with local business and local products, something traditional.

‘It will help for a certain time but the main thing is to change the type of business you do. It depends on what you are selling. If you are selling s***, you are getting s***.

She said the problem was not British people, but that ‘a few people are very rich with a lot of money and they are controlling big business around here.’

She claimed: ‘They put little people to do bad stuff. They get richer and richer and richer. They are sick people. The main problem is upstairs.’

‘They tried to not let us become a restaurant and to make us a bar instead. The people around here, I cannot say, but they attack us in many ways.

‘They put garbage and set fires. We have had death threats because they want us to fit in the area and put in a bar instead.

‘It’s one of the most beautiful islands in the world, everybody should work to change this. It’s not doing good for anybody. They should increase the quality and right prices and the right people will come.’

Lucas Veyssiere, who lives in Palma but is the manager of the Folies Calvia Beach Bar in Magaluf, said that Brits go ‘crazy’ on the island.

‘People do things they can’t do in England,’ he added.

The 29-year-old was working at a beach bar on the promenade – around 300 metres from the strip.

He continued: ‘It’s nicer to be in this area, it’s a different type of people. Some people there are crazy, breakfast for them is beer.’

Mr Veyssiere said that Magaluf was a ‘tourist spot and not many Spanish people come here.

‘This is like England’s playground,’ he joked.

‘When you don’t have respect I don’t like it. We have a waitress here and men walk past all the time shouting ‘hey baby girl’. Come on, stop. This is not the words you have to use. This usually happens with the girls.

‘It is usually Brits doing this. That is the truth. In England, they don’t do these things because they can’t. I think the rules are great but it could be better.’

Miguel-Angel Vallespir, 26, who has lived in Magaluf his whole life and works at his father’s bar, said he felt tourists treat the island well overall.

But he added: ‘I think they can be a danger for themselves. People with bad intentions sometimes take advantage of drunk people and some people are aggressive. Abusing substances and drugs is bad.’

Speaking about the crackdown on tourists, the manager of the Puerto Rico bar, said: ‘I don’t think that the rules will solve any problems because people that want to use drugs or drink will find a way. It’s bad for business. People should be more aware of the consequences of doing bad things. Banning something is not going to do anything.’

The latest crackdown adds to the 2020 law which banned happy hours, pub crawls and the sale of alcohol in shops between 9.30pm and 8am.

The new decree comes after the government warned rowdy tourists that they would face punishments under tougher sanctions for rowdy behaviour.

Up to €16million (£13.7million) will be spent on enforcing the street drinking ban as well as on security, inspections and educating tourists on ‘excessive tourism’.

The strict rules, which also prohibit tourists from organising drinking parties in public, spraying graffiti, riding scooters and displaying nudity, are set to stay in place until at least December 2027 – by which point the government hopes the law will no longer be necessary.