Brits go to war against Balearics' boozy holiday crackdown: Tourists accuse officials of 'killing' Ibiza and Majorca hotspots with raft of tough new curbs including €1,500 fines for street-drinking

Partying Brits have waged war on Spain's Balearic Islands by vowing to defy a crackdown on booze-fuelled holidays - as they accused the government of 'killing' popular resorts.

Tourist hotspots including Palma, Llucmajor and Magaluf in Majorca and San Antonio in Ibiza have ramped up efforts to curb rowdy behaviour by hiking fines for drinking in the street, banning shops from selling alcohol at night and restricting party boats.

In a bid to toughen up the islands' 2020 legislation, partygoers now face penalties of between €500 and €1,500 (£430 and £1,290) if their street drinking 'disrupts coexistence, involves crowds or deteriorates the tranquillity of the environment'.

Party boats are no longer permitted to get closer than one nautical mile (1.852km) of the designated areas and they have been banned from picking up or dropping off passengers. 

Shops selling alcohol in areas of 'excessive tourism' must now completely close between 9.30pm and 8am, rather than simply stop selling booze between these hours.

The strict rules, which also prohibit tourists from organising drinking parties in public, spraying graffiti, riding scooters and displaying nudity, are set to stay in place until at least December 2027 - by which point the government hopes the law will no longer be necessary.

As the tougher rules came into force last night, fuming Brits drinking in bars and walking along the Magaluf strip told MailOnline that their holidays were being 'wrecked' by the crackdown and claimed the party resort was trying to rebrand itself as a family destination.

Daniel Vella, 24, from Portsmouth, said: 'Magaluf is for a good time. If you are coming to a place for a party, you should be able to party. I think if they bring all those things in, it will ruin this place. It's already going downhill now.'

His friend Bradley Shetland-Carter, also 24, said: 'We are English, we are British, we drink a lot. If you are banning drinks at 9.30pm, we need more alcohol. We come here to get drunk and drink all day… f*** the rules.'

Walking back from a day at the beach before hitting the bars, Daniel continued: 'It will kill this place. We've been four times. It's early season but it's much more dead than usual. I think if they bring drinking bans and make it more than it is, it will ruin it.'

Charlie Jay, 25, from Torquay, Devon, was walking to another bar with a group of lads after refuelling at a kebab shop. He said: 'Everyone knows Magaluf for what it is, don't they? Magaluf is the party place so I don't think they are going to be able to change that. I came here five years ago and nothing has changed. It's got better if anything.

'Everyone knows it as the party place, so people will keep coming for years and years.' When asked what he likes about the party resort, he added: 'Anything goes in Magaluf, it is what they say on the tin.'

Carl Shurley, from Leicestershire, agreed, telling MailOnline on the beach promenade: 'That's what Magaluf is about, it's here for a good time. You are here for a good time, not a long time. With this drinking ban, all it's doing is wrecking the holiday.'

The 34-year-old, who was catching up with a stag-do, added: 'They are turning it from a party resort to a family place, that's what they are trying to do. They should just keep it as it is, that's what Magaluf is known for. Benidorm is your family/party resort and that's what Magaluf is trying to do.

He said the crackdown was aimed at Brits 'because we act like t***s'.

'I've noticed there's hardly any party boats here,' he added. 'You are wrecking it, that's what they are doing to it. People will be disappointed, they are going to lose a lot of customers. It's a party island, people spend lots of money here, now they are changing it, they are going to ruin it.'

At the appropriately named Three Lions Bar, where Brits sat drinking in England football shirts, one waitress said: 'Magaluf has to be a party place, it has to be.'

When MailOnline spoke to a group of police officers about the latest rules, they said not much had changed other than the area of 'excessive tourism' getting bigger for them to police. They joked that they did not have enough police officers to deal with the Magaluf chaos.

While revellers claimed Magaluf was not as busy and rowdy as usual because it is early season, at 5pm a group of lads heckled a lone woman in a bikini, asking her for a kiss and to give them oral sex. She blew a kiss back to them.

Holiday reps continue to swarm drunken revellers and drag them into bars late into the night, while others are offering out discounted lap dances at the not so secret 'secret strip club'.

At 10pm, the strip was quieter than usual but by the early hours of the morning, it was packed with tourists - many dressed up in fancy dress including a group of lads wearing Where's Wally? outfits who were being chased by a hen-do chanting: 'We love you Wally, we do.'

Outside one nightclub, where partygoers were enjoying a silent disco, a firebreather performed a show as revellers watched on in awe. At the next bar along, a passionate Elvis impersonator serenaded the drunken crowds.

But along the strip, there was a notable lack of street drinking - a sign that the crackdown is somewhat working.

Most shops along the strip no longer sell alcohol because they want to stay open longer. In fact shop owner Saqi Aslam, 35, said the nearest shop to buy alcohol was over a 10-minute walk away from the strip now.

'I think the rules are a good thing,' he said. 'The shops that sell alcohol have to close at 9.30pm. If you don't sell alcohol you can stay open 24 hours. That's why the shops don't sell alcohol, so they can stay open longer.'

Tyler Marriott, 26, was walking along the strip with his step-brother Kyle Heeks, 21, when he told MailOnline: 'People will always come to Magaluf, Magaluf is Magaluf. People aren't going to be fussed by a new set of rules, I think people will still continue to come.'

He added: 'It's still people's home as well so you still have to be respectful that people live here but other than that it is the party place so you have got that side of it as well, that's what people come here for.'

Tyler said that the rules were aimed at badly behaved Brits who 'don't care and they go back home the next week and they are not bothered'.

Kyle added: 'A bad few eggs could ruin it for everyone, that's really the main problem, you can't stop that. People won't listen.'

Cameron Smith, 24, from Birmingham, said he had been coming to Magaluf for several years. He said: 'I think Magaluf is trying to change its identity. Magaluf has always had the reputation of being a loose place because the drinks are so cheap and you get all-inclusive holidays.

'Since the crackdown, it's a lot more chilled. The standard of people, people are spending more money because the drinks have gone up.'

But he added: 'I've got two minds about it. On one hand, Magaluf has that identity and should rock with it and make as much money as they can and rinse it but I do see they are trying to take away that bad image and paint it as a family-friendly place.'

Ben Fox, a 25-year-old musician working at the Alchemist bar on the strip, said: 'There should be islands like Magaluf and Ibiza, there should be - everyone deserves a holiday break.

'Not everyone's got the money to drink in England all the time, when they finally want to come abroad they want to come for a drink, this should be the place. Magaluf is a mad place.

'As tourists, we bring all the money into the island so why would they want to stop that? If I had so much revenue coming in from British tourists, I wouldn't limit it - but they are already limiting it.'

Jack Richards, 22, who was on holiday from Gloucester, said that the ban could be detrimental to Majorca's tourism industry.

He said: 'It's difficult. Magaluf is known as the party place and you expect to get battered, have loads of drink go back to hotel same again next day, chill on the beach. It's harsh in the sense of that's what it's come to.

'There's probably more sensible ways of getting around it, I think they will realise it will take a hit on tourism.

'I think it will always have the appeal but not the extent to it does - it will die down, it will be about a year and they will see the effect it's having and revise it.

'If it's going to stay until 2027, they will see a lot of tourists die off. If I was to come back next year and the ban is in place, I don't think it would be half as busy.

'The majority of Brits will be quite unhappy.'

He said the ban was 'definitely' aimed at Brits, adding: 'You can tell who the Brits are, it's always the hen do's and stag dos and the rowdy ones and it gets all physical.'

The former police officer said there was very little police presence and if they had more patrolling then they wouldn't need to put in these bans.

'It's difficult. You are coming to these places, and a lot of them are run off tourism, British tourism,' he said.

Conor and Jess, from Newcastle, said that they feel that the people will find a loopholes around the ban.

'I think if people want to buy alcohol it's always going to be accessible, whether it's in bars or before 9.30pm and drinking it,' Conor said.

But he added: 'I was here years ago and it was a playground but it's calmer now.'

Jess, who spent a season working in a bar in Magaluf last summer, said: 'I feel like how Magaluf compared to how it was five years ago is a lot nicer. People who come over for their first time, they don't know it's calmed down.

'I think the bans are working. Last season I worked on the strip and the police patrolled it up and down all night putting in the rules. Even the bar stuff, it was my job to pull people who were drinking in the street in.

Conor said it is '100 per cent' the Brits who this crackdown is aimed at. He added: 'There's been massive protests in Tenerife as well about British people taking over and the locals hate it.

'Obviously it brings money into economy but what's the price you pay for British people coming and getting drunk in the streets?'

Jess continued: 'I think people will still come but there is a decline in people coming. It's nowhere near as busy as it was five years ago. 'I feel like people come and don't know the rules until they get here and they are like 'oh'.

Oliver Hasler-Cregg, 24, from Accrington, was sat having a drink with his girlfriend along the beachfront.

He said: 'It's up to them they can do what they want to do. We are guests in their country. I think people will probably follow the rules because they will crack down on policing. It's not the be all and end all - you can still drink in bars.'

Becky, from Lancashire, said: 'There's a difference between being rowdy and being an a***hole. That's the thing. When we came off the plane, there was someone absolutely leathered. I feel like the Brits, you can see who is British. I think it's embarrassing.

Becky, who was on holiday with husband Craig, added: 'I think it [the rules] will stop people coming back if that's what they are coming for [partying]. They will just go somewhere else like Bulgaria.'

Colleen Goodall, 57, from Lincolnshire, said: 'The younger generation won't feel good about it. But for middle-aged people, we want to come out for a drink and it not be too rowdy. It can get really loud. I came to Magaluf eight years and it was so different.

'It just feels like a cattle market here now. Everyone is rowdy everyone is kicking each other.'

Her husband, Richard, also 57, said he was shocked by 'the amount of drinking and drugs consumed' and saw people taking cocaine on the beach in the mornings.

He said that the rules will not be followed by Brits and that the sale of alcohol 'will just go underground and hidden'.

The latest crackdown adds to the 2020 law which banned happy hours, pub crawls and the sale of alcohol in shops between 9.30pm and 8am - a rule that local businesses have criticised.

The new decree comes after the government warned rowdy tourists that they would face punishments under tougher sanctions for rowdy behaviour.

Authorities in the Balearic Islands have announced 'commercial establishments' have to be completely closed between 9.30pm and 8am, and cannot simply shut display cases like they have previously done.

Up to €16million (£13.7million) will be spent on enforcing the street drinking ban as well as on security, inspections and educating tourists on 'excessive tourism'.

Jamie Martinez, the mayor of Majorca's capital, Palma, said one of his main objectives is to 'correct uncivil attitudes' and this applies as much to holidaymakers as it does to locals.

The new rules include a ban on drink parties in public places, graffiti, scooters, and even nudism and semi-nudism. It toughens the sanctions on activities that deteriorate or dirty the city's public spaces.

The fines for graffiti or slogans will be increased from between €100 to €750 to between €1,500 to €3,000.

In the case of minors who commit graffiti vandalism, the mayor explained that parents will be held responsible and will have to ensure payment of penalties and meet the cost of removal by the town hall.

When the government first introduced the strict law four years ago, it said it was the first in Europe to restrict the sale of alcohol in certain tourist areas.

It said it hopes it would 'force a real change in the tourism model of those destinations'.

The Balearics' crackdown comes after thousands took to the streets in Tenerife last month to voice their anger at holidaymakers.

More than 15,000 protesters waved Canary Islands' flags and blew horns in Santa Cruz, the capital.

Disgruntled locals have fumed they are fed-up with 'low quality' tourists who only come there to take advantage of the the cheap food and drink. Angry locals held up banners which read: 'My misery your paradise'.

While locals were determined to have their voices heard, authorities have expressed concern that holidaymakers will stop visiting which could impact the tourism economy.