Smoking on Benidorm beach could cost you £1,700 as under string of rules at Spanish tourist hotspot

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Anyone visiting Benidorm this summer time could face hefty fines in the event that they don’t observe rules relating to particular entry occasions for the resort’s ever-popular seashores.

Tourists and locals alike are banned from setting foot on the sands between the hours of midnight and 7am, with swimming, sleeping on the beach and tenting on the sands additionally strictly forbidden.

Anyone caught on the beach between these hours could face a high-quality of between €750 and €1,200 (£640 to £1,025).

Other rules which were launched within the Spanish summer time hotspot cope with pretty innocuous actions, such as taking part in ball video games outdoors of designated areas or reserving a spot on the sands with a parasol. These include fines nearer to £100.

Other fines are extra apparent and sometimes handle environmental considerations. The heaviest high-quality you can obtain is for smoking on the beach, a penalty of €2,000 (£1,700).

Drinking alcohol on the sands brings a penalty of round £650, and the use of cleaning soap and shampoo whereas showering can see vacationers fined £560. There are considerations that the chemical substances in trendy soaps are detrimental to native marine wildlife.

Much of the remaining regulation was introduced in to curtail the impression of tourism on the lives of locals, with fines introduced in for being bare on non-nudist seashores (£560), and never masking up appropriately when leaving the beach (£300).

Large penalties had been additionally launched to discourage doubtlessly harmful behaviour – a high-quality of £860 awaits anybody who’s caught swimming whereas a crimson flag is flying, for example.

The Independent has contacted Benidorm’s native authorities for remark.

Though the above rules are enforced within the japanese beach resort, which lies round 90 minutes south of Valencia, comparable rules are commonplace all through Spain. Fines for utilizing cleaning soap and shampoo in beach showers, or strolling round city in a bikini or swimwear, have been launched in cities such as Barcelona, with smoking banned on seashores in Ibiza and Mallorca simply earlier than summer time of 2023.