This Is Not Magalluf

Puerto Alcúdia. Puerto Pollensa. Can Picafort. Playa de Muro. What do they have in common? If you answer that they are all resorts in the north of Majorca, then you would be right but you would also be wrong. The real answer is that they are not Magalluf. In just the same way as Port Sóller, Cala Millor and Cala d'Or are not Magalluf.

The Mallorca world revolves around a sun of Magalluf obscured by darkness that stalks the night and only around this sun. Am I right or am I right? You would be right, too. Magalluf, always Magalluf. Never here, there or everywhere else. The body of Magalluf is picked over by a scavenging and voracious press endlessly hunting for the bones of a story, one that is preferably sordid, sensational, sad or all three. A plague on both the houses of Magalluf itself and the media it fattens.

I am right but I'm not right. You would be right but you would not be right. The northern resorts, as with more or less all other resorts in Mallorca, may have little more than walk-on parts as extras in the tragi-comedy that has been playing to packed media audiences in Magalluf, but there is something to be said for playing a bit part: no spotlight turned on means no blemishes to be noticed, real or imagined, minor or rather more than minor. Be careful what you wish for by way of attention.

The prostitute thing is not a phenomenon in the northern resorts. Thank God for that. But Magalluf serves as a warning. As perhaps do solutions to its troubles. If not Magalluf, then where? The prostitute thing would be unlikely to gravitate north because of logistics. Where are the women based? Palma. Distances are short to the places of their violence. Besides which, the north's resorts are unlike Magalluf and parts of Playa de Palma that offer fertile drunken, youthful pickings for the women of the night mugging patrols. But there again, it isn't only the drunken and the youthful who fall prey. And also there again, it isn't accurate to suggest that northern resorts are solely "family", a branding which somehow seems to imply that they are spared the worst excesses that Mallorca can offer.

Things do gravitate though. Remember the problems caused by the scratch-card touts? The story went that they had been hounded out of Calvia and so switched operations to Alcúdia, which also meant the other northern resorts. Which year would it have been? 2008 maybe? The office in Puerto Alcúdia suddenly closed towards the end of July. They all disappeared. There was never an adequate explanation as to why, though it was believed to have been because the fines had reached such a level that they had to shut up shop (fines for illegal street touting, that is). A new operation appeared the next year but the worst had passed. There was no longer quite the harassment and the abuse that tourists had been subjected to, and what there has been by way of touting in the past couple of years has been low-key compared to what it once was. But though there were supposedly the fines, it wasn't really police action that stopped the worst of the scratch-card operators. It was more because the level of business wasn't good enough.

The looky-lookies are something else. They have been a feature for years, and complaints against them, as in Magalluf, are increasing. And just as in Magalluf, there are occasional police actions, and they're back on the streets in no time. There are bar owners who are sick and tired of them, but there are some bar owners who have to look at themselves. Those ones who have encouraged the lookies. And we all know that it is not just fake goods that they sell. They've been selling other stuff for years as well, and if a tourist doesn't happen to know what else they sell, there is always someone on hand to tell that tourist. I shan't identify the shop, but let me just say that I overheard its owner telling a couple of Swedish lads the other day about the lookies. "The black guys?" asked one of the Swedish boys. "They sell gear?" "Yes." It's always nice to be helpful to tourists.

We may feel in the north that it's all about Magalluf, but then we have to ask why that is the case. The concentration on Magalluf may offend as much as the negative nature of the reporting offends and so doesn't reflect all that is positive, but again one has to ask why. There are serious issues in Magalluf. Be thankful that it is Magalluf which gets the attention. But also wish Magalluf well.

Tackling Chaos In Magalluf

So, Calvià town hall has come up with a cunning plan to beef up security and to tackle delinquency in Magalluf next summer. For the record, these measures will include illuminating the beach at night (assuming this does not affect aircraft), closing the Punta Ballena to traffic at night, installing surveillance cameras and extra policing. The town hall also intends talking with the "responsible authorities" to deal with the matter of party boats and with businesses to address issues to do with bar crawls.

To say that the town hall has come in for a fair share of criticism this summer would be an understatement. Whether measures it has now announced will satisfy its critics and whether they will have any real effect will only be known next summer. At least it has reacted, though.

The problems in Magalluf are that well-known that they really don't require my repeating them. It is the fact that they are well-known, however, that has prompted the level of criticism aimed at the town hall as well as the kind of accusations made about local police which will only go away if future action is concerted and is seen to be applied with evenhanded rigour.  

For all this, the town hall, as with Palma and Llucmajor town halls, deserves some sympathy. The problems in Magalluf, Playa de Palma and Arenal are many, and not all of them are ones that town halls or local police forces are equipped to deal with or should even be expected to deal with; people falling off balconies comes into the latter category, organised criminality comes into the former.

These many problems can be defined in two main ways. One is that of what might be called anti-social behaviour (drunkenness and its attendant issues). The second is crime pure and simple. Anti-social behaviour may slip into crime when violence occurs but it is essentially, if not always in practice, containable by the different police bodies. A manifestation of such behaviour which could have become violent but which didn't was the way in which cars on Punta Ballena have been surrounded by drunk and offensive young tourists. The videos of this - and Javier Pierotti was the one who did most to draw attention to it - were shocking. The town hall will now close the street to traffic. It's a simple enough measure, thus proving that some incidents can be contained and even prevented.

It is the crime, though, which is by far the greater problem. It is one that the town halls cannot tackle. Only the National Police and Guardia Civil can, but even they are presented with obstacles. The most obvious criminality is that of the mugging prostitutes. These women, for the most part, ply their trade against their will. It has been shown by the arrest of gang organisers in Playa de Palma that women had been brought from Nigeria and forced into what they do. 

The police can round up these women, just as they can round up looky-looky men who are in Mallorca illegally, but doing anything with them is a very different matter. The impotence of police forces - the National Police, the Guardia and local police - is mirrored elsewhere on the island where problems are not as they are in Magalluf but are there nonetheless. Lock a looky-looky man up for the night, and then what? Fine him? How's he going to pay? Deport him? It's a very long, complex and expensive business. It is the same with the women in Magalluf or Playa de Palma. Many of the looky-looky men are exploited, most of the women are, and in the women's case, they have essentially been victims of human trafficking for subsequent exploitation. This is the prime criminality. Not what they themselves might do.

The success that the National Police had in arresting gang leaders involved in mugging prostitution in Playa de Palma has to be repeated. It is the only way to try and bring an end to all of this, and in Magalluf there is surely one very powerful business interest that will want it stamped out there.

Meliá are transforming Magalluf. They and their partners are investing heavily in bringing about a change to a resort which, even since Meliá's plans for it were revealed two years ago, seems to have deteriorated. This cannot be good for Meliá when the manifestations of crime are right there on the doorsteps of their new up-market creations.

Gabriel Escarrer, the boss of Meliá, apparently spent his summer holiday in a "chalet" in Magalluf. One wonders what he saw at night. Or maybe he didn't need to see. More than the small bar owners who complain about the looky-looky men and about alleged local police inaction or favouritism, it is Meliá which have the muscle to force improvements in Magalluf. Over to you, Sr. Escarrer.

* The video, "Magaluf Caos 2013", was the first posted by Javier Pierotti this summer.