All Night Long: Bar noise and music

Various municipalities across Mallorca share a similar problem, a similar “dilemma”, that of balancing night-time bars and entertainment with the need for some peace and quiet. “The Diario” yesterday looked at the situation in places such as Manacor and Andratx. It could as easily have gone to other towns and resorts.

The dilemma has existed for as long as there have been night-time bars. It is not just the bars and clubs, it is also hotels, though in the case of the latter the issue is straightforward enough. Noise ceases by midnight and is often self-regulating, as it is in Playa de Muro where there are not the same impositions in terms of limiters as there are elsewhere; the hotels act with responsibility without being dictated to. Playa de Muro is also, when it comes to other forms of evening or late-night music, a rather different case to many other resorts; there just simply aren’t the establishments.

The noise issue is at its most extreme in Magaluf where residents have been complaining for years and where the complaints have been getting louder. Nearby, in Son Caliu, there is an almighty row regarding the Pacha disco in what is essentially a residential zone, where the club would be open to early morning. On the other hand, the Mallorca Rocks hotel venue, which kicked off last night, keeps to the midnight curfew; The Kooks were due to have finished by 11.30, giving half an hour for those leaving to hopefully disperse.

It is the noise of people leaving (or arriving at) bars that is generally the issue. In Puerto Alcúdia, in the main tourist centre, one hears little by way of complaint, except about the shouting and whatever at three, four in the morning or later from those making their way from the likes of Cheers or Bells. Otherwise, the noise inside the establishments is contained; the midnight closure of terraces and doors is complied with.

The problem is far greater in the towns. Resort Puerto Pollensa may be, as indeed the port area of Puerto Alcúdia is also a “resort”, but both are also towns. Complaints about noise are more likely to come from residents than from tourists; residents who live in the towns. But again, it is not the music from inside that creates the problem, which is why it is so difficult to understand Pollensa town hall’s absurd stance on live music in bars in Puerto Pollensa, especially if this finishes by midnight.

There is no real solution, short of prohibiting anything beyond midnight, which would be a mistake and would be contrary to a culture of tourism (for some) and to a local culture which treats midnight as a starting-point not an ending-point for a night’s entertainment. It is unfair, though, to say to people living by bars that they have to just lump it. Unfortunately, however, this is probably what they have to do.

Noise is a facet of holiday life and of Mallorcan life. The best thing is to go and live in the country. Or at least choose streets in towns where there are no bars. Problem is, someone has to live in the streets that do have them. Not easy.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Acts Of Mindless Vandalism

So you arrive at your bar in the morning. Seems normal enough. Until, that is, you notice that something is not quite right.

Mindless vandalism does not always require grand gestures, those of highly visible destruction or defacement. Sometimes its nature catches you out. Like break-ins, and don’t I know, initially you don’t latch on, until it becomes apparent. Some time on Saturday morning, someone decided to try and pull the barrier out of the ground between the doctor’s clinic and the Foxes Arms in Puerto Alcúdia. Decided to do this and also try and break in half a strut holding up the “toldo” (terrace sun shade). This someone didn’t succeed in either. The barrier didn’t look worse for wear, until you touched it; the strut was bent rather than broken. But the extent of the damage didn’t matter. There was, as always with these things, a sense of invasion. The visible signs may not have been that obvious, but a broken this or a broken that is dangerous – for the customer. It means a day closed, a day’s loss of earnings and a day spent spending money on some repairs.

A different matter. There are new neighbours. Hotel workers. Polish, it would seem. Let’s not go down the Poles-on-the-rampage routine of the Don Pedro hotel in Cala San Vicente last summer, as in let’s not start castigating an entire nation. But. But, when the noise on the terrace is sufficient to require two visits – from myself – to let them know that there is noise on the terrace, then I get – how do I put it – a tad hacked off. The noise is most uncommon in a quiet urbanisation. It is most out of place. Two warnings, I was at pains to point out, despite three chaps seemingly prepared to confront me. Two warnings. Number three, and I hate the idea, and it’s the “denuncia”. They got my drift. They might also know that I can find out which hotel they are working at. Hotels do not take kindly to being told by stroppy neighbours that their shipped-in workforce is keeping these stroppy neighbours from their shut eye. Especially as they are usually handing over the ackers for the workforce to keep stroppy neighbours awake.

Unlike residencies close to hotels and the commercial centres, you do expect peace and quiet.. It’s why people don’t live near to hotels and commercial centres. If you do, then you have to expect rather less peace and quiet. There is also the business about the definition of “evening” and “night”. This may seem bizarre, but it is a facet of the law. Noise on a domestic terrace, after midnight, is equal – in law – to noise on a bar terrace.

Yet, these two incidents are curiously instructive. In my discussions with those with several decades of living in Alcúdia, Pollensa and elsewhere, it is clear that there is a certain nostalgia for the old days of the “generalisimo”. Heaven forbid, you might think. But crime was almost non-existent. No one would think of smashing a toldo support for fear of getting a thrashing from the Guardia and a lengthy stretch in the slammer. On the other hand, back in the days before Franco died, no one did much about noise. You could be on terraces till the wee smalls, playing music, dancing, drinking. It didn’t matter. Now it does. The perpetrator of the Foxes vandalism will not be found, he will not get a police kicking or a sentence, but the hotel workers, high-spirited but not malicious, can get a police visit or can get a hotel-issued one-way ticket back to Poland. It doesn’t, somehow, make much sense.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Art Of Noise

5am. There’s a bass sound coming from somewhere. Is it from a car in the street? No, sounds too far away. Onto the upper terrace, and it is a little clearer; not loud but discernible. It’s coming from across Albufera. Sa Pobla. It’s travelling some eight kilometres or so; it’s coming from the party for the “Acampallengua”. 5am. Hopefully, no-one in Sa Pobla was desperate for a good night’s sleep; they wouldn’t have had one.

And what is this “Acampallengua”? Literally it means camp language. It’s pretty accurate. This is an annual occasion that moves around the island. It is a celebration of Catalan, and particularly popular with the youth; hence the party and the sports that had been arranged during the day. The camping part is that they pitch up and pitch tents and then head off to the sports, the night party, the fire run, the arts workshops, the giants and the pipers and the worthy speeches by politicos and the head of Obra Cultural Balear, the Catalan promotional organisation – “we will not make a step backwards in the struggle for our language”, says he (as quoted in translation from “The Diario”).

On the face of it, this event seems fair enough, a bit of camping out, a bit of football and a bit of techno. Yet I can’t help feeling there is something slightly sinister about the politicisation of the event and therefore of the language. Statements such as that by the head of the Obra makes this pretty clear, and in his audience are teenagers who are being made more aware of their language (which is fair enough) but also potentially being radicalised (which may not be fair enough). Whatever. It’s not my argument.

More noise. The tourism season cranking up and the sounds of entertainment are wafting across the resorts; no, wafting is way too weak, make that reverberating. By no means for the first time, there are a number of mutterings about the loudness of the Bellevue show garden sound system. I’m told that it is louder than last year. Every word can be heard clearly as far away as Magic and probably further. “Do you like The Beatles? Scream and shout … ” And so they do, and then once the show has finished at the midnight deadline they continue for some more minutes, demanding more and shouting some more.

This was a theme last year, as it will probably be a theme next year and the year after. Whether the sound system is excessive is not for me to say, but there is an ongoing difficulty in reconciling the noise of holiday and the sleeping and peace requirements of residents and probably also some holidaymakers. Were this a “problem” only occasionally, it might not all be so annoying to some, but it is every night. Not sure how you resolve it, especially when the wind is in the right (or perhaps that’s the wrong) direction.