It was ex-Mayor Benavides who first introduced a ban in Almuñécar on staking out your beach spot with an umbrella long before you intended to use it. Since then, other towns have followed suit.

That was back in 2012 and there was a lot of grumbling and stomping around. Any umbrella found unattended; i.e., just an umbrella and perhaps a towel, was confiscated and the owner had to pay a fine to get it back.

The problem was that beach brollies have become increasingly cheap to buy, so its cheaper to buy another one than to try and reclaim your old one. The end result was that the Almuñécar Town Hall had an ever-growing stock of 2nd-hand beach umbrellas and only a trickle of eagerly expected revenue from fines coming in.

Besides, you could always use an old and tattered one to stake your claim and then waltz down to your front-row spot several hours later with a decent one to replace it whilst enjoying the beach, sun and water.

That hasn’t stopped the Councillor for the Environment, Luis Aragón, reimposing the prohibition, calling on bathers to collaborate and not “carry out an abusive occupation” of the beach. He pointed out that the beach cannot be cleaned and raked over in the early hours, as is the custom, if it is bristling with brollies.

Now this brollie occupation is basically practiced by our visitors from Granada, who either own holiday flats or rent them here. And it follows that the Almuñequeros are not happy bunnies over this practice because they increasingly find that they can’t get a decent spot on their own beaches, thanks to the sneaky tactics of the ‘visiting team.’

The fact is that our beaches are public places, free for all to use and the only people who can reserve space are those in the beach-bed rental business, who pay hefty taxes to the Town Hall for the privilege.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)