EXCLUSIVE: British Stag Do Tourists Embark on Boozy Bender After Eight Arrested in Majorca Beach Brawl
A group of British "stag do" tourists from Hertfordshire found themselves embroiled in a dramatic incident during their Majorca vacation, with eight of their friends spending the night in a police station following a beachside brawl that left two cops and a waiter injured.
The raucous episode unfolded on Wednesday evening at the upscale Balneario Illetas beach club, where the group had been partying and allegedly behaving in a disorderly manner. Tensions came to a head when the group began throwing rubbish into the sea, prompting staff to intervene and ask them to stop.
According to Nacho, a 42-year-old waiter who was caught up in the melee, the situation quickly escalated. "They start to laugh about him and insult him and some things like that. Finally they, the group, start to hit him. Then more colleagues go to the beach to try to stop and then they [the British group] start to hit everybody," Nacho recounted.
Footage of the incident shows security guards and restaurant staff grappling with the allegedly drunken holidaymakers as reggaeton music plays in the background. One woman in a bikini, as well as one of the security guards, can be seen being knocked to the ground during the scuffle.
The aftermath of the brawl was equally dramatic, with eight of the British men being arrested and spending two nights in a Majorcan police station. Upon their release, each was forced to pay €850 to retrieve their passports.
Despite their friends' legal troubles, the rest of the group wasted little time in resuming their holiday antics. Just hours after the arrests, the remaining tourists were spotted lounging poolside at their £300-per-night hotel, the INNside Melia Palma Bosque, indulging in a seven-hour drinking session.
The hotel, located near the Port of Palma de Mallorca, boasts two swimming pools, a spa, a fusion restaurant, and premium rooms - a fitting backdrop for the group's continued revelry.
Nacho, the injured waiter, expressed his disbelief at the situation, saying, "I have never seen a situation like that" in his 25 years of working in restaurants on the Costa del Sol. He detailed how he became embroiled in the fracas when he saw his manager and another colleague attacked as they tried to intervene.
"I try to stop the fight, in as far as I can, it was quite difficult. There was the big man in the shorts he starts to hit me, you can see in the video. He was hitting in my head, in the back of my neck," Nacho recounted.
The incident has sparked an investigation, and a judge will now determine whether to press charges against the eight arrested men. In the meantime, the remaining members of the group seem intent on making the most of their Majorca getaway, seemingly undeterred by their friends' legal troubles.
Nacho, a waiter at a restaurant in Majorca, Spain, found himself caught in the middle of a nightmare when his boss sent him back to deal with a group of unruly British tourists. "When I was in the restaurant, the big man started to blame me and he said, 'F*** you Spanish people,'" Nacho recounted. "And another girl also started to blame me."
The incident was just the latest in a string of problems that have plagued the Spanish island, as local workers grapple with the disruptive behavior of some foreign holidaymakers. According to Nacho, the issues often seem to stem from British tourists in particular. "Often here in Magaluf, when it's a big fight, it's the English involved, not the Scottish, not the Irish, not the Welsh," he said.
Another waiter, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job, shared a similarly distressing account. He claimed that the group of British tourists had racked up a €1,500 bill before the chaos erupted. "I saw the fight from the restaurant," the waiter said. "I went to the reception and I started to call the authorities, when I saw a colleague of mine, a woman... [go] flying in the sand."
When the waiter tried to intervene, he said a "big man" in the British group hit him, adding, "He hurt a lot of people." The waiter was knocked to the ground during the attack and said he is still in pain. "I can't think how this can happen," he lamented. "I think it's important to say, I think this is the same thing we are having here in these past weeks."
The unrest has left many local workers feeling fearful and demoralized. "When I see tourists like this, I think 'What do we have now?' It could happen now [again]," the waiter said, expressing his apprehension about returning to work. He warned that the problem could escalate, with more anti-tourist demonstrations on the horizon. "Now we are seeing a lot of [anti-tourist] demonstrations, there's going to be more, that's why I don't feel good [about this], because maybe this will be the point of no return."
The brawl in Majorca comes amid a broader backdrop of growing tensions between locals and tourists on the island. Last Saturday, around 15,000 people took to the streets of Palma to protest against overtourism, holding placards that read "tourists go home."
The situation has become so dire that a relative of the waiter working at another hotel on the island said the hotel had received messages from British tourists asking if it is "safe for them to travel here." The incident has highlighted the urgent need for a solution to the ongoing conflict between the desire for tourism revenue and the need to maintain a harmonious local community.
As Nacho lamented, "We are the workers, we don't want this. We want good quality tourism." The challenge now is to find a way to balance the needs of the tourism industry with the wellbeing of the local population, before the tensions boil over and the island's reputation as a top vacation destination is irreparably damaged.
Comments
Post a Comment