Mykonos: A Place Much in Need of Order

Jeff--Saturday

This is an update to a post I wrote five years ago. I wish I could say nothing has changed. But a lot has changed—carrying the island full throttle in a direction most likely to end in tears.

A dozen years ago, one of the fictional characters in my debut novel, Murder in Mykonos, said, “I’m like a Mykonian: I’m used to living in a bordello—filled with police.”

Five years ago I heard a Mykonian say, “Mykonos is a brothel run by police.”

Today what’s heard is, “Mykonos is a brothel—abandoned by police.”

I guess you could call that evolution, but if you want to know who’s running it now, read my latest, The Mykonos Mob. That’s not meant as a commercial, but as a reality check.

The newly re-elected mayor has a lot of people rooting for him to take charge and address what I trust he already knows: Mykonos is in desperate need of order.

 Those with influence build as they wish wherever they want—beaches and building codes be damned; vehicle rental operations and private van services have clogged the island’s narrow roadways with LA rush hour type traffic; most drive and park with reckless disregard for each other and pedestrians; garbage and construction materials are dumped with impunity wherever convenient; noise regulations are disregarded; and municipal licensing and tax laws selectively ignored or unenforced. And I won’t even get into the ready availability of whatever may be your vice of choice, and its consequences to the public at large.

And why, pray tell, is all this done?

“For the benefit of the tourists.” is the answer often given, though in reality it’s for the benefit of those who profit off their presence.  That anything goes attitude has drawn hordes of a new breed of privateers flocking to the island—the “profiteers.”

Yet, it’s incontrovertible that tourists love it here.  At least a certain kind of tourist does. Why wouldn’t they?  Amid its beautiful beaches, heavenly weather, and pristine sea they can behave in a manner utterly unthinkable back home, for Mykonos has evolved into a place where rules are not enforced nor statistics made public that might shock some into clearer thinking on the downsides of unfettered personal freedom amid a place literally immersed in natural (and artificial) intoxicants.

It’s a three-month wide-open party. One that Mykonians once treated as a harmless tourist tsunami—sweeping in each June and receding by September—providing what they needed to keep their treasured island alive for the balance of the year. But the tsunami now carries away far more than it contributes, draining away the very spirit and identity of the island.

It is a place for profiteers unconcerned with the long-term health of the island. The businessman who avoids paying the fees and taxes he legitimately owes is not a colorful character beating the system, he’s a villain wrecking the future of every Mykonian child in the island’s underfunded schools, damaging the year-round quality of life for every Mykonian who must suffer with bad roads, understaffed public health facilities, unaffordable housing, and garbage polluting every vista, every nostril, every day. 

And it is a place beginning to draw negative press.  The island’s warning “canary in the mine” is badly staggering, Mr. Mayor.  It’s time to rally the Mykonians around your mandate, take charge, and restore much needed—and desired—order to a place we all love.

We’re rooting for you.

—Jeff