Irish tourists holidaying on the Algarve this summer have been warned they could face €1500 fines if they get caught walking along the street in their bikinis or swim shorts.
Town hall chiefs in the party resort of Albufeira have announced the penalty fee as part of a crackdown on semi-nudity outside of exempted areas like beaches and hotel swimming pools.
Police would also fine holidaymakers caught weeing where they shouldn’t up to the same amount.
Any badly behaving tourists who strip off completely on the street or get caught having sex in public are set to be hit even harder in their pocket with maximum fines for falling foul of the law set at €1800 under the new draft rules.
Street drinking is also a ‘no-no’ under Albufeira’s clean-up with potential penalty fees starting at €300.
The party resort’s draft new Code of Behaviour, approved late last year, has now been put out to public consultation before its expected implementation ahead of the summer season.
Council chiefs say their intention with the Code of Conduct project is to “create better conditions for the development of the municipality, preserving Albufeira as a multicultural, family-friendly, and safe destination that values its heritage and identity.”
Albufeira’s mayor Jose Carlos Rolo said in an official government document yesterday announcing the 30-day public consultation period: “It is urgent to establish measures that effectively address the adoption of abusive behaviours, particularly by those who seek the municipality of Albufeira as a tourist destination.”
Last summer a group of partying British tourists put on a shocking display of public nudity which led to locals questioning the type of visitor the town attracted.
Footage of their drunken antics, showing them starkers on their knees in a line on top of a bar counter, went viral as Mr Rolo called the display “deeply negative” and said he would call for police reinforcements.
Eight British holidaymakers were later identified by cops. The GNR police force is understood to have discovered who they were following an investigation after failing to catch them in the act with their pants still down.
The jaw-dropping scenes happened at Route Caffe 66 on the Oura Strip, Albufeira’s equivalent of the infamous Punta Ballena party strip in Magaluf.
One of the revellers was seen slapping the bare backside of a pal who was part of the bizarre party train the holidaymakers formed on the bar top on their knees.
It was not immediately clear this morning what action had been taken against them following an investigation which was announced at the time.
The unsavoury incident came as Albufeira tried to distance itself from its party image and move upmarket and away from its dependence on British tourists.
Two months earlier the council had presented a diversification strategy with the motto ‘Albufeira is part of your life.’
Mr Rolo said after the bar incident sun and the beach would always be at the centre of the resort’s tourist product but added: “We want to focus also on diversifying the offer, in order to contribute to reducing seasonality but also to attract new tourist markets from other nationalities.”
As well as bikinis in its crackdown on public semi-nudity, Albufeira council chiefs are also going to war on people walking the streets in trikinis and pants.
The document the council has put out to public consultation says under a section titled ‘Prohibitions’: “To remain or circulate in a state of partial nudity, understood, for the purposes of this Code, as a person who partially exposes their body, using any type of clothing or accessory, namely, swimwear – bikini, trikini, swimsuit and similar, shorts and underwear.”
Beaches and beach access areas including seafront car parks as well as hotel swimming pools have been declared “exempted areas.”
The fine for breaking the semi-nudity rules would be between €300 and €1,500.
In November 2022 city hall chiefs in the Costa del Sol capital of Malaga announced heavy fines for having inflatable penises and sex dolls as part of a crackdown on hen and stag parties.
The previous month scantily-clad models turned heads in the same city as they stripped down to their underwear on a packed street in front of shocked tourists and locals.
The women got out of a van before taking their clothes off and posing for a cameraman.
And one of the models briefly whipped her bra top off and exposed her naked breasts in front of children and OAPs after being egged on by a group of men opposite.
The shocking scenes occurred near Atarazanas Market in Malaga, the city’s central market and one its city’s architectural gems.
City hall officials confirmed at the time the daring photoshoot had not been authorised and they were investigating.
In June 2023 in the same city a group of Brits were filmed trying to pull their trapped friend from the narrow opening of an underground waste container after a drunken prank went wrong.
Reports at the time said the tourists had put their trapped friend inside the container at busy Uncibay Square in Malaga’s historic city centre after a drinking binge.
A number of anti-mass tourism demonstrations were held in Spain last year, with the largest taking place in Majorca and the Canary Islands.
