Ibiza has long been heralded as one of the world’s party capitals.

You just have to learn to put up with the sunburnt, drunken and drugged up English folk, and you’re in luck.

Jokes, English friends and family, but there are some tough new regulations that are threatening the beach party vibes. Take for example Sa Trinxa beach bar, where, according to the BBC, “dance music pulses from the speakers and lithe, young beachgoers drop by for a late lunch and cold Spanish beers”.

Hold up – “lithe, young beachgoers”? OK then, moving on.

The beach bar has been told to turn down the beats, and turn them way down:

The Ibizan authorities say that music in open air venues like Sa Trinxa must be capped at 65 decibels (dB) – slightly louder than a normal conversation but quieter than most vacuum cleaners.

Andreas Simon is part of a community group called Musica Si, or “Yes to Music”, that’s been set up to fight the changes.

He shows me a video that the group is sharing on social media. It points out that the average sound of traffic noise is 70dB, while an airliner landing reaches a volume of 110dB.

Mr Simon says the authorities came to install a music limiter in one beach bar in the town of San Antonio at 7am one morning.

Although the bar was empty and the music was off, the limiter showed a reading of 72dB. “The owner asked, ‘So who do you fine? The sea or the waves or the wind?'”

Sounds like a lyric from a really bad early 2000s song.

Others on the island are also joining the efforts to fight back against the regulations, including Ibizan DJ Marta:

“They want to stop everything,” she says. “But we’re bringing together different groups to join forces. Musicians, painters and people who love the arts. We’re going to fight against these rules that are being imposed upon us. The little bit of culture this island has left is fast disappearing.”

The tides started shifting back in 2015, when a socialist coalition took control of Ibiza’s governing council and made reining in tourism central to their manifesto.

Here’s Vicente Torres Ferrer, Ibiza’s director of tourism:

“We know that music is very important for our offer in Ibiza, we don’t want to stop that. The problem comes when we have illegal parties in private villas or music till very late at night in open places.”

Mr Torres Ferrer says modern audio equipment can be used to keep music inside a venue, at a lower volume.

“If you have a terrace and you just have one unit hanging from a wall, you have to play the music very strongly so that it arrives at the last table.

“But if you have four units in a certain way, then the music doesn’t go away. You can hear the music a little bit but it’s very low.”

It’s not just the noise levels that are being regulated. In the popular San Antonio West End drinking strip, bars must now close at 3AM instead of 5AM.

Critics say that has actually made things worse for the area:

Carlos is a taxi driver and an Ibizan native. “There are so many drug dealers and there are not enough police in the street,” he says.

Martin Makepeace [below] agrees. He moved to Ibiza from the UK in 1991 and describes himself as a prominent businessman in the San Antonio area.

“[Closing bars early has] caused more problems than it’s solved. It’s put thousands of people on the street earlier. At the end of the day, it’s the crime on the streets that’s the problem.”

I ask him about reports of prostitution and mugging in San Antonio.

“It’s true. There are gangs around who are intent on causing these kinds of problems,” he says but argues it would be easy for the authorities to stamp out that behaviour if they wanted to.

A moment of silence for Martin, who grew up with the last name ‘Makepeace’.

Budget cuts mean that putting more police on the street is difficult, and Torres Ferrer says that authorities are doing what they can.

Back to Carlos and Martin for the strong finish:

Taxi driver Carlos says some of Ibiza’s 140,000 permanent residents are considering leaving the island for good.

“Many local people who’ve lived here for the last 40 years, we’re thinking about leaving”…

In the last 10 years, many have left Ibiza to start new lives on Majorca or the Spanish mainland, he adds.

The changes to music venues, bar opening hours and caps on accommodation do seem to be having an effect – tourist numbers were down 4% for the month of July and 3% in August, compared with last year.

San Antonio businessman Martin Makepeace says the island is grappling with the age-old problem of how to balance the needs of residents and tourists.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation. Without the residents you haven’t got the tourists; without tourists, you haven’t got the residents. We’ve got to find a compromise.”

Whatever that compromise is, it will involve music played at a lower level and bars closing earlier.

I’m sure the Brits will still flock to the island, but others might eventually choose somewhere else.

[source:bbc]