Never Been Easy: Noise in Mallorca

Imagine that you are in Mallorca one hundred years ago. You are in a village. What can you hear? Voices, metallic tools striking earth or object, a newfangled automobile, animals. Even in Palma, things wouldn't have been so different, apart from there having been that many more voices, more automobiles plus ships and very occasionally by then an aircraft. Other noises would have been the music bands of the fiesta or the bells of the church; otherwise, noise was unobtrusive.

Of developments in the twentieth century, two were arguably more profound than others. Noise and light. They were profound because of their assault on senses. Both owed much to electricity which was, one hundred years ago, still in limited supply on Mallorca. Once supply was assured and grew, once other technologies advanced or were created, the twentieth century invented noise and light pollution. 

By the start of the tourism revolution, noise would still have been contained, but once Mallorca's industrial revolution arrived, the collective decibel level shot up. So many more voices, so many more vehicles, airplanes, and also the sound of tourism - entertainment. While Mallorca had its clubs before the revolution really started, they were mostly indoor and mostly confined to Palma. The club, the entertainment offer, the gramophone player went al fresco in coastal resorts.

Tourism is noise. Noise is tourism. It is the noise of millions of voices, cheers, shouts, screams, laughs. The noise of the pool aerobics pumping a beat at ten in the morning. The noise of the evening playback, karaoke, tribute act, live act. Noise, that of music and voices rising into the night skies above terraces, has existed as long as modern tourism in Mallorca has, but once upon a time that noise extended with little control into the wee small hours. It was noise that seemed appropriate and acceptable, the noise of enjoyment of balmy summer nights, starlit skies and romance, either personal or simply that of the holiday.

On 26 March 1987, the Balearics introduced Decreto 20/1987: Measures of protection against acoustic contamination of the environment. There were laws already in place, national ones, that dealt with noise, but the Balearics decree of 1987 was pioneering for a region of Spain. One of its articles referred specifically to the noise from "establishments open to the public" which did not have adequate soundproofing. It had to cease by midnight. Curiously, and from what I can see in this decree, there was no specific mention of outdoor entertainment. Nevertheless, a midnight threshold for such entertainment was to catch on, if only at the level of some municipalities. The twelve o'clock curfew came in.

Twenty years later, a law was passed. Ley 1/2007 "against the acoustic contamination of the Balearic Islands" drew on European legislation and made certain stipulations in respect of what were called "zones of special acoustic protection". These were zones with elevated noise levels on account of the existence of numerous activities, shows and public establishments; essentially, therefore, though not exclusively, tourist zones. This law established that there had to be restricted hours placed on activities which, directly or indirectly, caused these elevated noise levels. In its preamble it referred to "individuals' indisputable rights to relaxation, health and privacy", to the rights of citizens to have acoustic environmental quality and to the "main productive sector of the Balearic Islands", i.e. tourism. The preamble recognised, and said as much, that it was no easy task to reconcile these competing demands.

And of course, it never has been easy. Even had tourism been developed in specific tourist-only areas, absent of residential accommodation, it still wouldn't be easy. There is, or so one concludes from an overwhelming impression through the likes of Trip Advisor, an aversion among holidaymakers to noise going on late. Maybe even in those romantic days they didn't appreciate it either, though one feels that there was less opposition back then. There again, these are the views of British holidaymakers. The Spanish would tend to have a different take.

The twenty-first century has been one of a continuing fight against the noise pollution which sprang up with tourism but which was only belatedly tackled. Limiters, terrace curfews, these are evidence of this fight which has been occurring in the resorts for years now, and it is one extended to the La Lonja area of Palma, which isn't a specifically tourist zone but is one of those zones of special protection highlighted in the 2007 law.

I am personally inclined towards the romantic view, the one of those hot summer nights when there weren't the controls, but I am also inclined to a different productive view of the 2007 law and one that is increasing in momentum, namely that the Spanish day and night needs changing and that more sleep is required. It has never been easy? It would have been a hundred years ago.