GNR descend on holiday town; arrest 12 – identify nearly 80 for violating Code of Conduct
Albufeira’s perennial battle with drunken holidaymakers ruining the summer for so many others continues, in spite of the municipality’s ‘Code of Conduct’ introduced to rein-in loutish behaviour.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, a GNR swoop on the town to ensure order prevailed discovered that nothing of the sort was the case: 12 people ended up being arrested for the practice of “diverse crimes”, namely drug trafficking, the illegal practice of ‘private security’ (meaning bouncers employed had no official credentials to act as private security guards), possession of illegal weapons and being drunk and disorderly.
According to reports, in total 34 establishments (night spots and bars) as well as street salespeople were fined, while dozens of fines were issued for people violating the Code of Conduct (in the main, the violations centred on people drinking alcohol in the streets).
In terms of apprehensions, agents ended the operation in possession of 19 doses of cocaine, 43 of hashish/ liamba, plus various doses of ecstacy/ MDMA. Two ‘illegal weapons’ were also seized.
According to a source for the GNR, agents “identified people walking around with bottles of alcohol; some exhibited provocative attitudes with police, including pulling down their trousers and ending up naked. We only acted in situations of clear abuse”.
A statement from the GNR added that the operation involved agents from various sections of the Faro Territorial Command, the Group of Intervention and Public Order, the national traffic unit and the unit of coastal control and frontiers. Albufeira’s own municipal police also took part.
These ‘muscled operations’ (some agents were accompanied by sniffer dogs) are expected to continue through the summer as the focus generally is to try and ‘clean up’ Albufeira’s image as a tourist destination that has gone a little haywire.
Over the weekend, SIC Notícias carried a ‘portrait’ of the holiday town, highlighting complaints by residents who describe being at the perennial mercy of “punch ups”, “alcohol-fuelled excesses” and “filth”. The ‘perception’ of insecurity in Albufeira is what most concerns locals, and their municipal leaders, who continue to hope that the Code of Conduct, and the fines that it imposes, will start putting holidaymakers off behaving quite so badly.
As this story went up online, the Resident received an indignant press release from Albufeira Town Hall, complaining of ‘disinformation in the press’. Details to follow….
Source material: RTP/ Jornal de Notícias/ SIC Notícias
