Boozed-up tourists bother Bulgaria’s Sunny Beach
In less than a month, four drunken foreign tourists have fallen from their hotel rooms in Bulgaria’s Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach – one to his death.
Police say that such falls from balconies are hardly unique to this summer of 2012. But what is alarming is that the number of cases are on the rise, local law enforcement authorities say.
In one incident, reports said, a British tourist fell from the balcony of his third-floor hotel room in the popular seaside resort, having consumed alcohol at lunch and apparently driven to drink – for the occasion – by the performance of the football team of which he is a fan.
In a coma after the fall, the man’s injuries meant severe emotional trauma for the two children who were accompanying him, according to a report by local television station bTV.
Staiko Manev, chief of police in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Nessebur, said that in another case, a foreign tourist had walked straight through his room, on to the terrace, and fallen over it.
Manev said that some foreign tourists who got drunk were “aggressive, creating really big problems”.
Elena Ivanova, president of the Union of Owners in SunnyBeach, said that “the fact is that tourists coming to Bulgaria – some of them, of course – come for the cheap alcohol.
“But we ask ourselves, whether this group doesn’t drive away normal tourists, families with children, elderly tourists,” Ivanova said.
Some hoteliers want liquor outlets closed by 10pm and bars by midnight, but reforms are likely – local reports said – only six months after Bulgaria’s Parliament votes on the revised Tourism Act, which means no earlier than the summer of 2013.
(Photo: pavlo araujo/sxc.hu)
