"Todo patas arriba". Everything's upside down. Or everything's in a mess. It is a legend that is splattered across the front cover of a magazine and over two photos of building work which is taking place on the streets of a resort in summer. This is a very interesting magazine. So interesting is it, that I am devoting much of this article to translating parts of articles from it. Let's start with the editorial leader.
"Never again. The situation, which is unfortunately shown on our cover, should not be repeated: the main streets, the most touristic, with work being done in July and August! Unbelievable. Unheard of. Our visitors cannot hide their amazement. How can this type of work be done during these months? Ah, Spain is different, my friends; you know that. We don't believe that this would happen in any other tourist country, least of all in Europe.
"We know the town hall's explanation. In winter, building companies are too busy to deal with our needs. You have to catch them when you can... But that's not our problem. It is one for the representatives we elected for four years, to make our lives better and to not mess up and cause significant damage to businesses."
On another page, there is an article with a headline which says that 1,300 million (pesetas) are to be spent on changing an image.
"(The deputy mayor) has explained to us that the town hall wishes to beautify the resort. 'We are aware of the need for an urgent change of image. We want to literally upholster the resort in green. Pavements with trees, benches, new lighting in an area where the "hooligan" currently sits. (One avenue) will be transformed into a true boulevard with fountains, benches, trees and plants.' "
The article's author is sceptical. All this is to be done within three years. "We'll see," he concludes questioningly. There will be municipal elections well before the three years are up.
There is also an interview with the local police officer who is responsible for the organisation of police resources. It is under the headline "Restructuring of the municipal police". The restructuring has come about, says the officer, in order to take account of specific needs in the municipality. There are four main priorities. These are the "venta ambulante" (looky-lookies), "tiqueteros" (PRs), night-time noise and public order at night as well as security on the beaches. The police on the beaches will be plainclothes cops. They will mingle with the holidaymakers and their mission will be to prevent the venta ambulante and any type of (unlicensed) service on the beach. The police hope that their presence will act in deterring these illegal activities. "Rather than a repressive action, it will be a preventative action."
Elsewhere, there is a short letter to the magazine which reads: "Friends and neighbours, as the new spokesperson for the neighbourhood association, I hope for the collaboration of all residents, working together as an association of friends in this time of crisis in order to cure all the ills in the area, to beautify and enrich it and enhance our local heritage".
Moving on from the contents of this magazine, it might be noted that on 8 May this year there was an item from a website in which the PSOE opposition criticised the start of building works in resorts during the tourist season. The opposition said that there was indignation among businesses and neighbours and concluded that the lack of planning by the Partido Popular was inconceivable when such work should be done in winter.
It might also be noted that a plan for resort beautification has now been drawn up and will include a true boulevard as part of a change of image. It might further be noted that beach security is such that there now has to be illumination of the beach, while it might also be noted that a newspaper recently ran a report into a territorial battle between tiqueteros. Total war, said the report.
By way of explanation of these notes, the PSOE opposition was criticising building work that had started in Magalluf, the true boulevard (finally) is included in the Meliá plan to make Magalluf up-market, the illuminated beach is that of Magalluf, the PRs' battle is around BCM Square.
Nothing really changes, does it. Nothing has really changed, has it. Even the odd name is the same. The name of the letter-writer from the neighbourhood association is José Tirado. I am guessing he is the same Pepe Tirado of the Acotur tourist businesses association. It is a guess as I can't be one hundred per cent certain. There again, it was all a very long time ago. The magazine I have quoted from was "Entre Tots". Its date? July-August 1989.
Showing posts with label Tiqueteros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tiqueteros. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Friday, November 16, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Zones for tiqueteros in Calvià proposed
Business associations in Calvià have proposed that there be seven zones for tiqueteros (PRs) to operate in the main tourist centres of the town, e.g. Magalluf and Santa Ponsa. These would only be for PRs from clubs and not small bars. PRs for the latter can only operate in front of their establishments.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Saturday, April 21, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Calvià reduces tiquetero tax
The daily charge on businesses who will now be able to once more employ tiqueteros (PRs) to promote their businesses in resorts such as Magalluf has been reduced by Calvià town hall to between 15 and 30 euros per day, depending on the size of the establishment. The PRs will be limited to operating in front of the businesses, though those representing discos will be able to operate more widely.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Turning Back The Clock: Terrace times
So, Palma town hall is planning to break the midnight terrace curfew. Mayor Isern and his tourism supremo Álvaro Gijón have seen the light, and it needs to stay on past twelve o'clock. "We cannot allow (businesses) to lose the business opportunity caused by the obligation to clear terraces at midnight."
If the town hall goes through with the abandonment of the curfew, it would apply mainly and probably exclusively to tourist area frontlines. It's a move that will doubtless have bar owners in backlines clamouring for a similar dispensation. It could raise charges of discrimination, but it is something.
Apart from bar owners away from the sea fronts, not everyone will be happy, especially if they live above a bar. The midnight curfew has been a compromise, and it has been one of trying to work out a means by which residents (and indeed some tourists) in tourism areas can be accommodated and can get a good night's sleep.
There isn't and never has been a happy medium. Palma, by loosening the regulations, is turning the clock back to a time when residents were disadvantaged. Howls of protest are likely to follow, if it does indeed loosen the regulations. But it would be a loosening very much in line with regional government thinking. As tourism minister Delgado has announced, tourism should no longer be subjugated to urbanism, something that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways.
If Palma goes ahead, there will be calls elsewhere for a relaxation of the midnight rule. Local ordinance governs the operation of terraces in individual municipalities, but changes to local ordinance would run up against a general law, one that defines the parts of a day (and night).
This law, and as far as I am aware it was not re-amended, established during the last administration that "evening" was no longer from eight to twelve but from eight to eleven. It caused a ruckus in Magalluf, Calvià being the only town hall which sought to apply what, for almost everyone, was a totally unknown change to the law. Police went in soon after the law changed, made bars close terraces at eleven, there were protests and everyone promptly forgot about it.
The re-definition of evening was one of a raft of measures brought in by Enviro Man, Miguel Grimalt, daily in the news as he raced across Mallorca in a constant campaign to save the environment in all its facets. The loss of an hour of evening was a confirmation of just how much regulation was being used to make bar owners' lives nigh on impossible.
It was also a confirmation of how little was understood of what many tourists enjoy. In a word, it is fun. It is an impossible compromise, as many other tourists want to be tucked up by midnight, but the possibility to enjoy being up late, sitting outside on a warm summer's night and having a drink was one of the great attractions of "holiday". Along the way, regulators forgot that people came on holiday. A semantic preference for "tourist" has relegated the word association of holidaymaker and fun into virtual non-existence.
Holidays have become sanitised and have lost some of their essence as a consequence. That old romantic Pedro Iriondo, now put out to presidential pasture by the Mallorca Tourist Board, alluded to this when he became president. He reminisced of a time when everyone had happy, smiling faces and there could be night-time barbecues on the beaches, and the police, rather than issuing tickets, would join in. There didn't used to be all the regulation. And if there was, no one took much notice.
Palma's move would not be one of turning the clock back to those more hedonistic days. It would not be one so much with the desires of tourists in mind as with the needs of businesses. And behind the move, one senses the influence of both other regulation and of market change, namely and respectively, the smoking ban and all-inclusives.
A turning back of the clock of a different sort will occur in Calvià, the town hall allowing tiqueteros (PRs) once more. But it is a turning back that comes with a price tag. Calvià's ludicrous tiquetero tax proposal will in all likelihood bring back the worst excesses of tourist harassment. The move is meant to help businesses, but it gives with one hand and takes with another. And unlike longer hours on terraces, it is not a move that most tourists will appreciate, proving that there is indeed no such thing as a happy medium between the wishes of businesses and all tourists.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for February 2012
Alfredo Rubalcaba is PSOE leader - 6 February 2012
British tourism: reservations down - 26 February 2012
Brochure speak - 1 February 2012
Carnival in Mallorca - 12 February 2012
Charles Dickens, the Mallorcan novel and - 8 February 2012
Class in the Balearics - 7 February 2012
Competitiveness in Mallorca - 21 February 2012
Consumer confidence survey - 15 February 2012
Correbou and tradition - 2 February 2012
Cruise operators and Catalonia tourist tax - 28 February 2012
Culture and expatriates - 10 February 2012
Cyclists and drivers - 24 February 2012
Duke of Palma's court appearance - 27 February 2012
Electricity in Mallorca - 20 February 2012
English in Balearics schools - 3 February 2012
Established since ... - 19 February 2012
French doping satire of Spanish sport - 14 February 2012
Judiciary, Spanish - 23 February 2012
Magalluf new hotels and image - 16 February 2012
Mallorca Tourist Board finances - 18 February 2012
Pesetas - 4 February 2012
Protests - 22 February 2012
Ryanair and Spanish air industry - 9 February 2012
Social media and news - 13 February 2012
Terraces opening after midnight - 29 February 2012
Tiqueteros in Calvia - 25 February 2012
Tourism law - 11 February 2012
Winter weather - 5 February 2012, 17 February 2012
If the town hall goes through with the abandonment of the curfew, it would apply mainly and probably exclusively to tourist area frontlines. It's a move that will doubtless have bar owners in backlines clamouring for a similar dispensation. It could raise charges of discrimination, but it is something.
Apart from bar owners away from the sea fronts, not everyone will be happy, especially if they live above a bar. The midnight curfew has been a compromise, and it has been one of trying to work out a means by which residents (and indeed some tourists) in tourism areas can be accommodated and can get a good night's sleep.
There isn't and never has been a happy medium. Palma, by loosening the regulations, is turning the clock back to a time when residents were disadvantaged. Howls of protest are likely to follow, if it does indeed loosen the regulations. But it would be a loosening very much in line with regional government thinking. As tourism minister Delgado has announced, tourism should no longer be subjugated to urbanism, something that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways.
If Palma goes ahead, there will be calls elsewhere for a relaxation of the midnight rule. Local ordinance governs the operation of terraces in individual municipalities, but changes to local ordinance would run up against a general law, one that defines the parts of a day (and night).
This law, and as far as I am aware it was not re-amended, established during the last administration that "evening" was no longer from eight to twelve but from eight to eleven. It caused a ruckus in Magalluf, Calvià being the only town hall which sought to apply what, for almost everyone, was a totally unknown change to the law. Police went in soon after the law changed, made bars close terraces at eleven, there were protests and everyone promptly forgot about it.
The re-definition of evening was one of a raft of measures brought in by Enviro Man, Miguel Grimalt, daily in the news as he raced across Mallorca in a constant campaign to save the environment in all its facets. The loss of an hour of evening was a confirmation of just how much regulation was being used to make bar owners' lives nigh on impossible.
It was also a confirmation of how little was understood of what many tourists enjoy. In a word, it is fun. It is an impossible compromise, as many other tourists want to be tucked up by midnight, but the possibility to enjoy being up late, sitting outside on a warm summer's night and having a drink was one of the great attractions of "holiday". Along the way, regulators forgot that people came on holiday. A semantic preference for "tourist" has relegated the word association of holidaymaker and fun into virtual non-existence.
Holidays have become sanitised and have lost some of their essence as a consequence. That old romantic Pedro Iriondo, now put out to presidential pasture by the Mallorca Tourist Board, alluded to this when he became president. He reminisced of a time when everyone had happy, smiling faces and there could be night-time barbecues on the beaches, and the police, rather than issuing tickets, would join in. There didn't used to be all the regulation. And if there was, no one took much notice.
Palma's move would not be one of turning the clock back to those more hedonistic days. It would not be one so much with the desires of tourists in mind as with the needs of businesses. And behind the move, one senses the influence of both other regulation and of market change, namely and respectively, the smoking ban and all-inclusives.
A turning back of the clock of a different sort will occur in Calvià, the town hall allowing tiqueteros (PRs) once more. But it is a turning back that comes with a price tag. Calvià's ludicrous tiquetero tax proposal will in all likelihood bring back the worst excesses of tourist harassment. The move is meant to help businesses, but it gives with one hand and takes with another. And unlike longer hours on terraces, it is not a move that most tourists will appreciate, proving that there is indeed no such thing as a happy medium between the wishes of businesses and all tourists.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for February 2012
Alfredo Rubalcaba is PSOE leader - 6 February 2012
British tourism: reservations down - 26 February 2012
Brochure speak - 1 February 2012
Carnival in Mallorca - 12 February 2012
Charles Dickens, the Mallorcan novel and - 8 February 2012
Class in the Balearics - 7 February 2012
Competitiveness in Mallorca - 21 February 2012
Consumer confidence survey - 15 February 2012
Correbou and tradition - 2 February 2012
Cruise operators and Catalonia tourist tax - 28 February 2012
Culture and expatriates - 10 February 2012
Cyclists and drivers - 24 February 2012
Duke of Palma's court appearance - 27 February 2012
Electricity in Mallorca - 20 February 2012
English in Balearics schools - 3 February 2012
Established since ... - 19 February 2012
French doping satire of Spanish sport - 14 February 2012
Judiciary, Spanish - 23 February 2012
Magalluf new hotels and image - 16 February 2012
Mallorca Tourist Board finances - 18 February 2012
Pesetas - 4 February 2012
Protests - 22 February 2012
Ryanair and Spanish air industry - 9 February 2012
Social media and news - 13 February 2012
Terraces opening after midnight - 29 February 2012
Tiqueteros in Calvia - 25 February 2012
Tourism law - 11 February 2012
Winter weather - 5 February 2012, 17 February 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
PR Disaster: Calvia's tiquetero tax
Calvia town hall is to permit "tiqueteros" once more. It hasn't decided exactly what the new ordinance governing the PRs will entail, but it has already decided what it is going to cost. Going to cost bars, restaurants and clubs, that is. The town hall is licking its lips at the prospect of 1.2 million euros finding their way into the municipal coffers, over a third of them in the form of fines, as a consequence of the PRs returning to the streets of Magalluf and other resorts and of their employers having to pay the town hall for the privilege.
Depending on the size of establishment and therefore the number of PRs that will be allowed, a bar owner could find him or herself having to fork out up to 3,500 euros a week.
For larger places, the cost of one employee could be as much as 350 euros more per week. This is because larger establishments will be obliged to fork out 50 euros a day (and they would be allowed to employ a maximum of ten PRs). Smaller places, i.e. less than one hundred square metres in size, will have to pay 30 euros a day but can only employ one PR.
To the onus of the tax (and this is the only way it can be described) is added an engineering of the business process. Smaller bars might wish to employ more PRs, so why shouldn't they be allowed to? What is the obsession with 100 square metres (or 200, another level of tax determination?
Over and above the arbitrariness, there is the question as to how such a tax can be justified, as it is a tax on marketing. The town hall's response would probably be along the lines of the fact that a PR occupies space owned by the town that is on the "public way". It is the same sort of principle as is applied to terraces which encroach onto the public way.
Up to a point, one can understand this, but where PRs are concerned, to be allowing them and then to be charging for them is a case of giving with one hand and taking with the other. But what if PRs were to be based only on a bar's property? What if they never moved? This would be unlikely, but were it to be so, then how could the town hall justify the tax? Only if the town's property is being used, can it feel safe in levying such a charge.
While regulating what businesses do is a legitimate responsibility of local authorities, too often bars appear to bear the brunt of petty and heavy-handed regulation. This is symptomatic of a culture in which business often appears to be misunderstood or simply exploited. There is a them-and-us culture, one exacerbated by a town hall mindset in which revenue calculations are arrived at with fines having been factored in. Town halls might be right to think like this, but it doesn't exactly make for an atmosphere in which all sectors of local resorts are co-operating for the greater good.
But, aside from the tax, what of the return of the PRs? Plenty of businesses have argued that they have suffered because they can't employ them (well, not legitimately). Perhaps so, but one reason why they were banned and why in other resorts they were confined to the premises and not meant to be patrolling the streets, was that there were so many complaints about harassment.
The town hall doubtless has a list of rules that it will unfurl to cover how PRs should operate, and doubtless they will be ignored. Allowing the return of PRs is one thing, making bars pay a tax for them is another. Calvia is making a rod for its own back. A bar owner who is obliged to spend as much as is being envisaged will want to make damn sure that he or she gets a return. And this is likely to mean a return to harassment of passers-by.
You can already begin to imagine how it's going to be. The local police will be spending all their time under instruction from the town hall to go in search of PRs acting inappropriately or without the tax having been paid so that the town hall can say it is keeping a lid on things and make a few more bob from fines. Meanwhile, other complaints that surface in the tourism season in resorts such as Magalluf will go unattended.
They're bringing back the PRs, but they're likely to bring about a PR disaster as well. Just wait for the internet to get clogged up with tourists moaning about the PRs.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Depending on the size of establishment and therefore the number of PRs that will be allowed, a bar owner could find him or herself having to fork out up to 3,500 euros a week.
For larger places, the cost of one employee could be as much as 350 euros more per week. This is because larger establishments will be obliged to fork out 50 euros a day (and they would be allowed to employ a maximum of ten PRs). Smaller places, i.e. less than one hundred square metres in size, will have to pay 30 euros a day but can only employ one PR.
To the onus of the tax (and this is the only way it can be described) is added an engineering of the business process. Smaller bars might wish to employ more PRs, so why shouldn't they be allowed to? What is the obsession with 100 square metres (or 200, another level of tax determination?
Over and above the arbitrariness, there is the question as to how such a tax can be justified, as it is a tax on marketing. The town hall's response would probably be along the lines of the fact that a PR occupies space owned by the town that is on the "public way". It is the same sort of principle as is applied to terraces which encroach onto the public way.
Up to a point, one can understand this, but where PRs are concerned, to be allowing them and then to be charging for them is a case of giving with one hand and taking with the other. But what if PRs were to be based only on a bar's property? What if they never moved? This would be unlikely, but were it to be so, then how could the town hall justify the tax? Only if the town's property is being used, can it feel safe in levying such a charge.
While regulating what businesses do is a legitimate responsibility of local authorities, too often bars appear to bear the brunt of petty and heavy-handed regulation. This is symptomatic of a culture in which business often appears to be misunderstood or simply exploited. There is a them-and-us culture, one exacerbated by a town hall mindset in which revenue calculations are arrived at with fines having been factored in. Town halls might be right to think like this, but it doesn't exactly make for an atmosphere in which all sectors of local resorts are co-operating for the greater good.
But, aside from the tax, what of the return of the PRs? Plenty of businesses have argued that they have suffered because they can't employ them (well, not legitimately). Perhaps so, but one reason why they were banned and why in other resorts they were confined to the premises and not meant to be patrolling the streets, was that there were so many complaints about harassment.
The town hall doubtless has a list of rules that it will unfurl to cover how PRs should operate, and doubtless they will be ignored. Allowing the return of PRs is one thing, making bars pay a tax for them is another. Calvia is making a rod for its own back. A bar owner who is obliged to spend as much as is being envisaged will want to make damn sure that he or she gets a return. And this is likely to mean a return to harassment of passers-by.
You can already begin to imagine how it's going to be. The local police will be spending all their time under instruction from the town hall to go in search of PRs acting inappropriately or without the tax having been paid so that the town hall can say it is keeping a lid on things and make a few more bob from fines. Meanwhile, other complaints that surface in the tourism season in resorts such as Magalluf will go unattended.
They're bringing back the PRs, but they're likely to bring about a PR disaster as well. Just wait for the internet to get clogged up with tourists moaning about the PRs.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, February 24, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Calvia bars will have to pay tax for PRs
Calvia town hall, in the process of approving anew the permission for bars and other establishments to publicise themselves through "tiqueteros" (commonly referred to as PRs), is to also introduce a tax whereby the businesses would have to pay between 30 and 50 euros a day per PR. Calvia includes the resorts of Magalluf, Santa Ponsa and Palmanova.
Friday, May 20, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Magalluf bar owners fight
A fight between owners and staff at bars on the Punta Ballena "strip" in Magalluf occurred in the early hours of yesterday morning. One owner had to be attended to at Son Espases hospital and received stitches for a wound to the face. The fight was all to do with one particular bar touting for business by other bars; it was the old "tiquetero" issue, in other words.
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