Tourists in Palma face fines of up to €750 for buying from illegal street vendors under new crackdown on unlicensed trade.
UK tourists wake up to ‘utterly ludicrous’ £640 fines in Spain
A Spain holiday hotspot is clobbering tourists with a £640 fine if they make a street seller mistake. Tourists in Palma face fines of up to €750 for buying from illegal street vendors under new crackdown on unlicensed trade.
Palma Police have begun to impose fines on people who buy products from illegal street sellers. In one case, eleven sunglasses were seized from the seller as evidence of illegal vending, while the buyer was fined for “making a purchase from an unlicensed street vendor on the public way”, Majorca Daily Bulletin reported.
The police force has said that this type of trade harms legal establishments and can result in a financial penalty for the buyer. Sellers are subject to fines of between €750 and €1,500 (£641 to £1,282). For buyers the range is €100 to €750 (£85 to £640).
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Before he became mayor in 2023, Jaime Martínez paid a visit to Playa de Palma one night and vowed that his party, the Partido Popular, would give priority to security in the area and tackle illegal street selling that was operating “with total impunity”.
Replying to the fine, a Brit fumed: “This is utterly ludicrous. A prime lesson is how to do precisely the wrong thing as a Government, the one which says “We want tourists and it’s wrong for protestors to harass them but if we find them buying stuff from illegal sellers we’re going to punish the tourists”.”
“Ban street sellers, Ban hire cars, Close the chiringuitos, Ban swimming attire on the coasts, Ban singing and dancing after 9pm, what’s left ?” another asked.
Another said: “This just doesn’t make any sense. I would expect average people to become confused and reluctant to buy – including in the weekly markets that every town and village holds every week. I’d expect a bit of fury and outrage coming from that lot as their sales drop.
Something’s amiss here. At least it sure smells funny.”