A
andrew711
New member
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2010
- Messages
- 176
Can I just add some thoughts as someone who is resident.
The lookies are generally harmless, but not always. They are known as conduits for drug selling. There was the story a few years back of the tourist with his family who was approached on the bridge in Alcudia's tourist centre and offered crack. The tourist was a Brit copper and the looky ended up in the canal.
The police can do very little. They can detain the guys but they've got no money to pay fines and they would clog up cell space. And even when one is detained, another appears.
The scale of counterfeiting is such that Spain has for years been blacklisted by the US because of its inaction in tackling piracy. I understand this has recently changed, but this is to do with a general law related to music/fvideo reproduction and not with the actions of the lookies and their suppliers.
It isn't only tourists. Lookies can sell in local offices or bars and take orders for pirated copies of DVDs etc. And please don't think this is just a trade carried out by people from Senegal or Nigeria, because it isn't.
I've engaged these guys numerous times in a spot of banter. I've got to know a few of them and, yes, I've bought from them in the past. But not now. They, like the massage girls, can seem harmless enough but they are part of the black economy. I don't want to sound pompous, but I pay taxes, I pay social security and I have a licence for business activity. This is not the case with the lookies.
If no one ever bought a service or a product from the so-called "venta ambulante ilegal", it would surely go away. Please don't confuse being on holiday as giving succour to a quaint little trade that is ultimately wrong, illegal and harmful. At least Pollensa, Alcudia and the north don't have the prostitutes of Magaluf, for which we should be immensely grateful.
Lecture over.
The lookies are generally harmless, but not always. They are known as conduits for drug selling. There was the story a few years back of the tourist with his family who was approached on the bridge in Alcudia's tourist centre and offered crack. The tourist was a Brit copper and the looky ended up in the canal.
The police can do very little. They can detain the guys but they've got no money to pay fines and they would clog up cell space. And even when one is detained, another appears.
The scale of counterfeiting is such that Spain has for years been blacklisted by the US because of its inaction in tackling piracy. I understand this has recently changed, but this is to do with a general law related to music/fvideo reproduction and not with the actions of the lookies and their suppliers.
It isn't only tourists. Lookies can sell in local offices or bars and take orders for pirated copies of DVDs etc. And please don't think this is just a trade carried out by people from Senegal or Nigeria, because it isn't.
I've engaged these guys numerous times in a spot of banter. I've got to know a few of them and, yes, I've bought from them in the past. But not now. They, like the massage girls, can seem harmless enough but they are part of the black economy. I don't want to sound pompous, but I pay taxes, I pay social security and I have a licence for business activity. This is not the case with the lookies.
If no one ever bought a service or a product from the so-called "venta ambulante ilegal", it would surely go away. Please don't confuse being on holiday as giving succour to a quaint little trade that is ultimately wrong, illegal and harmful. At least Pollensa, Alcudia and the north don't have the prostitutes of Magaluf, for which we should be immensely grateful.
Lecture over.
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. 
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