Some important context here is that this is an effort to deal with terribly behaving British tourists, since the same bylaw also bans walking around nude or only in underwear. In addition to just being terrible tourists generally, there’s a history of British tourists treating Spanish beaches like their personal vacationing grounds and not a different country where other people live and speak a different language.
There’s history of the British doing that all over the world.
Well they just gotta take all the fun out of everything don’t they? ☹️
The British and German tourists have a tight grip on Mallorca for example. A tiny, wonderful island, packed mainly with tourists from both nations during summer .
When i lived in Brazil, i observed the same on the island of Florianópolis and tourists from Argentina.
When I was in Mallorca when I was 12 I literally didn’t hear a word of Spanish over the course of the 2 week holiday. Ok, granted, I spent 1 week in the hotel room sick and watching One Piece on TV (also in German) but I’d say a whole week in Playa de Mallorca and only hearing perfect German was wild.
Almost as wild as when I opened that plastic bell pepper in a souvenir shop and there was a dildo inside. Like, why. Why would you want to have sex with a bell pepper. Why did they have red ones and green ones but no yellow ones.
Yeah sexy souvenirs are the worst. A colleague from work ( long time ago ) returned from thailand, with a t-shirt saying something like: I’m a Thai Sex Tourist - proudly wearing the t-shirt on his first day back to work.
Back to Mallorca, it is possible to evade most mass tourist activities though. I stayed once with my ex there and we took a posada in the normal center of the city. Since most tourists go the same places, always, we could quickly find some bars and restaurants where locals went.
Some had that “oh no alemanes, sigh” expression on their face, when they noticed we were german. But hey, absolutely understandable.
The posada was also almost empty, just another guy hearing football commentary in Spanish 24/7.
We had fun times. Most locals open up, once they figure that you’re not from the mass tourist group.
Absolutely agree. Mallorca has so much to offer apart from Palma, and it’s a disgrace how they massacred that city (and island). I am happy there are protests now.
I remember back then (it must have been like 2003) it was offered to my parents at a travel agency. I even remembered how they called home to ask my sister and me whether we would like to go since they knew we both were kinda anti Mallorca (since we then also didn’t know about the beauty of the other parts). We still agreed because it was a really cheap deal and we were like lower middle class back then, so a good deal’s a good deal. I’m still grateful because I would have never travelled to that tourist place by myself, and I would have never been scarred for life by that dildo. I think it was the first time I saw a sex toy in real life. There were still some really cool memories and moments, and even having diarrhea and watching One Piece for a week was pretty chill.
On the topic of t-shirts, I found a kid’s shirt saying “sample text” under the drawing of a cat at a flea market yesterday. Not too related to what you mentioned, but I hail that shirt so much and needed to share.
I also support the protests. It didn’t have to come that far, mallorquines are very tolerant by nature. Them protesting means things must have gotten worse over the years.
So, you did but the shirt? Made a good deal? What color is it?
It’s grey and looks very cheap, like Kik style, with some glitter. It was actually a free clothing swap so it didn’t cost anything. My two year old likes cats right now so it has a lot of potential to become her favorite shirt. It gives me “precise dwarf bravery” vibes but by now these companies produce them on purpose. I am cherishing this shirt because I found it in the wild and it is very obviously an actual mistake. Especially since it’s a toddler shirt.
The only thing that I don’t like about that shirt is that it doesn’t come in my size.
I’m not sure if your colleague wore the shirt as a joke or in all seriousness. I kind of hope the latter, simply because its genuity would save the cringe.
When i lived in Brazil, i observed the same on the island of Florianópolis and tourists from Argentina.
Never expected to see my town named here lol
I miss it so much, i hope i can be there again in short time. Ilha da Magia 🙏🏻
went to Benidorm on a lads holiday in my early 20s, can confirm it was just like a warm day in Swindon.
It specifically says human genitals. 😏
Dresses up like a horse cock
You heard them. No human genitals.
Bring a gigantic dragon dance horse cock.
So instead of a mouth that opens and closes…
As someone with Hyperphantasia, this is the comment of the day for me.
a ban that was introduced several years ago in Barcelona to little effect as offenders are mainly tourists who fly home without paying the fines.
So you make them pay before leaving jail.
Debtor’s prison is pretty much universally considered a violation of basic human rights. In the US there is even a strong contingent of legal scholars who feel that cash bail cannot be justified.
I apologize I don’t have time now to find a source for that.
I got you
From [Wikipedia] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors’_prison) about debtors prison:
In 1963, members of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental human rights organization based in Strasbourg, adopted the Protocol No. 4 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Article 1 of the protocol states that “no one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation.” Currently, 42 states have ratified the protocol.[74]
Article about cash bail reform
I’m not sure if either of these apply to international flight risks.
Maybe a better option would be to seize British passports and place offenders on a no fly list.
I’m not a legal expert, but this talks about “inability to fulfill a contractual obligation” rather than the refusal to do so.
I assume the problem is slightly different and it is mainly a problem of not being able to go after the money (perhaps at reasonable cost) if the travelers have it?
Make them pay when they enter the country and refund them when they leave
Or provide collateral. And chuck them on a wanted list for the EU. If they ever return, they get detained and have to pay and sent home.
I’m pretty sure dutch tourists will just get the fined forwarded to them through the CJIB (the Dutch fine collection authority). So fleeing the country does not help.
They don’t do a “wanted list” for murderers, I don’t think they’re going to do that for some drunken tourist that was dressed like a penis
What you talking bout Willis?
Europol has wanted lists, and just recently dutch wanted goons where arrested in Spain. If anything there is more need to European cooperation on the apprehension of criminals and border control… not less.
There are many cases where murderers were allowed to leave the country under the "pinky promise I will come back "
For example Rassoul Bissoultanov
The Spanish system is overburdened and someone is finally judged guilty after years and years. Meanwhile, if leave the country, good luck finding them again.
They can’t manage for murders and robberies, adding block lists for petty crimes would only exacerbate the situation
Looking it up, the fine is UP TO €300 in Barcelona. They could say “pay now, get 50% off, pay later and pay the full 300”
Or vice versa… now is 300 of we have to collect in the uk via a collection agency it will be 450.
I’ll bet plenty of collection agencies will collect that for 100 euro
Y’all we are talking inflatable dicks not murder
And we talking people skipping out on paying fines they deserve.
If it where up to me I’d allow the Guardian civil beat anyone in an inflated penis suit, untill the whole thing was flaccid and they could pour the occupant out through one of the airholes… but that’s just me.
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In American, that’s bachelor and bachelorette parties.
So is it a Stag Do and a Hen Do respectively?
Yup.
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Stag and hen dos.
What’s a hen do?
Lay eggs, mostly.
It’s what the English call a bachelorette party apparently.
Mostly just walks around clucking and eating corn off the ground.
A devotee of Vishnu. /s
Bachelorette party.
Hen = female
Do = party
A stag do is the male equivalent. In the UK & Ireland the word “do” is used often for social gatherings or events. Like a “work do” means you’re going out for drinks or whatever with colleagues from your workplace.
Americans are so sensitive, unlike us enlightened europeans
No Bucks/Hens nights was one of my rules as a pub bouncer. It’s always trouble. It’s mostly a group of friends out for a piss up and extremely bad behaviour at the expense of other patrons enjoyment.
Fuck, there goes my weekend.
Most of the food in the area of Spain I visited (South) was bad because it was made for British tourists. Had no idea it was going to be like that.
Gibraltar was cool despite being even more British.
Just do it.
The bylaws also prohibit going shirtless or in a bikini in areas away from the beach, a ban that was introduced several years ago in Barcelona to little effect as offenders are mainly tourists who fly home without paying the fines.
That’s easy to solve. You confiscate the passport until the fine is paid. Or arrest them and hold them without bond as a flight risk. The last time I got a speeding ticket–about 15 years ago, I think–I was in Ohio, and driving home to Illinois. The cop took my license, and said they’d mail it back once I paid the fine.
Quick edit: I’m not talking about cash bail here; that’s a separate issue. Bond can be refused when a suspect is deemed to be unlikely to show up for court, such as the suspect being a foreign national. This happens regularly, and isn’t particularly controversial. A person that is a citizen and resident of a foreign country is very likely to skip out on criminal penalties, therefore they shouldn’t be permitted to leave without paying their criminal fines.
In the US, the only way a government ID can be confiscated is if it’s provably fake. This is akin to debtors prison, a practice that has been outlawed in much of the civilized world for good reason. I get the sentiment, but there are better ways to enforce.
100% false, because as I said I’ve had it happen to me. States can, and do, do this.
I can’t tell you how happy it would make me to drive down the street and see someone in a giant penis costume walking around.
That would brighten my day no question.
Stupid Spain.
Now picture in your mind that, again, and again, and again and it’s now the 20th time this month.
There are no cool things that cannot be spoiled by being done all the time, relentlessly.
Also in my experience - having lived in Britain - the brits doing this stuff actually behave even worse outside their own country than in Britain (which is quiet shocking if you’re familiar with Friday and Saturday nights in areas like Essex) - British hen and stag dues are expected to be extreme nowadays and they get worse when abroad in the kind of place that’s just a cheap flight away from most of Britain and is comparitivelly much cheaper, because the kind of Britons you get there couldn’t give a rats arse about what foreigners think (Brexit didn’t happen in a vacuum and the whole idea that “Brits are superior” is definitelly common in Britain, especially England) so their behaviour abroad is even more unrestrained than in their own country and not just in this kind of dress-like-a-cock way (which IMHO is fine, even if it gets old after a while) but they’re very loud at all hours of the day and night, and prone to fights and breaking things.
(In the context of Europe, Brits are pretty bad in how they handle drinking since they’re prone to binge drinking rather than having habitual moderate drinking - such as normally having a beer or a glass of wine with lunch - so not only do they really go for getting drunk as fast and as hard as possible in those traditional two days a week of going out and getting pissed but also, funnilly enough, by not drinking in a moderate way the rest of the week they don’t have the same capability of handling their booze as many other Europeans)
I suspect what they did in this town is more some kind of half-arsed pushback against that more general behaviour problem of loudness, rowdiness and destructivness than the actual costumes, only in trying to balance the interests of the hotel and bar owners with those of the people who do not make a living from the cheap side of the Tourism Industry, they came up with this “trick” to try and make it less appealing for hen and stag dues or at least for the ones with the more rowdy crowds.
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Instructions finally clear! Walks around naked…
Also banned. So is walking around in underwear.
Even Batman/Superman style underwear?
Damn, can’t have any fun these days…
