After months of careful study and consultations, including relocation to an alternative site, Málaga Council has decided to impose a total ban on the ‘botellón’ – street drinking parties.
The Málaga botellón is currently permitted on Friday and Saturday nights on the paseo de los Curas, but tonight will be the last one. In future, street drinking will only be allowed during Feria, Easter and on Christmas Eve. Offenders will face a fine of €300 and the immediate confiscation of their beverages.
Málaga joins an increasing list of towns and cities to ban street drinking, the others being Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Valencia, Alicante, Castellón, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, Cádiz, Murcia, Melilla and all towns and cities in Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Galicia, Cantabria and Canarias.
The decision took into account a decline in the numbers attending the botellón since it moved from Plaza Merced to the paseo de las Curas, concerns of residents in other proposed sites and also concerns about under-age drinking in general.
Some residents have voiced fears that banning the ‘organised’ botellón will merely cause its fragmentation into smaller, mini-botellóns throughout the city. The Council proposes to increase police presence on the streets of the city to prevent this from happening.