A beautiful village dubbed Spain’s answer to Mykonos is on the cusp of out-right banning tourists – as under 200 full-time occupants have finally had enough.
Locals in Binibeca Vell, a picture-perfect fishing village on the southern tip of Menorca, voted in May to chain off their streets to visitors between 8pm and 11am.
But now they are holding a referendum to stop tourists visiting altogether, permanently keeping people out of their cobblestone alleyways and whitewashed homes. The village of just 195 homeowners sees more than 800,000 visitors a year, an average of over 2,000 visitors a day.
Residents have long complained how rowdy holidaymakers overrun Binibeca Vell during the summer season and ruin their peace in search of a holiday snap.
Fed-up locals have taken to sharing photographs of tourists disrespecting their private homes, with one shown splayed out on a stairwell and another having scaled a balcony.
The village website urges visitors to “avoid uncivil attitudes” by refraining from “entering the houses or climbing stairs or balconies” and to help keep the village clean by “using the bins and keeping the walls white”.
But not all in Binibeca Vell want tourists gone. Oscar Monge, President of the Community of Property Owners in Binibeca Vell, has insisted they are welcome and the new rules are not designed to wreck anyone’s livelihood.
He told the Mail that most villagers backed the new rules as a “question of common sense”. He accused Menorca council of failing to regulate the bus loads of tourists arriving in the village and withdrawing a €15,000 subsidy to help clean up rubbish left by holidaymakers.
Mr Monge added: “I think the measures are having the desired effects as far as homeowners here are concerned with regards to the amount of people during the hours of rest.
“But it’s not normal that the island council is charging [up to €4 per person for tourist tax] and doesn’t want to help an iconic tourist destination like our village, where five of the photos you see from Menorca are from here.”
“Things reach a stage where people say ‘enough is enough’ and that’s what’s happened. We don’t get any help to keep our community looking the way it is.
“It costs us around €100,000 a year to keep the houses as white as they are because the facades get blackened with people putting their hands on the walls.
“If we weren’t getting 800,000 visitors a year, we’d probably have to paint only every two or possibly every three years.”
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