As summer has now really ramped up, localities which are situated in known touristic hotspots are facing the usual litany of well-known problems associated to low quality tourism.

Localities such as Sliema, St Julian’s, and Swieqi are once again facing familiar issues: unruly tourists at all hours, particularly during the night, things like public urination, drunken disturbance, and recently even violence.

This has left residents and those who represent them deeply exasperated – not just because of the problems themselves, but because these problems repeat themselves year after year, summer after summer.

For instance, this newspaper earlier this week reported on how a promised crackdown on the short-let fuelled disorder and overtourism plaguing Swieqi has failed to appear more than a month after it was due to come into force, with the locality's mayor warning that the situation is spiralling out of control and residents describing nightly scenes of public urination, vandalism and drunken disturbance outside their homes.

Stricter enforcement measures were meant to have been enrolled out on 1 June. As of today, they still have not been implemented, according to Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat, who spoke to The Malta Independent about the scale of the crisis and the government's failure to act.

The mayor said that the fundamental problems in the locality had not changed since last year, but their intensity had. "The difference from last year is that the numbers of tourists have increased but the main issues have remained," he said. "These are the consequences of the lack of action." He warned that, without intervention, "numbers will keep on getting worse."

This week as well, a shocking incident came to light as Times of Malta published footage from an apartment block in St Julian’s showing a group of four individuals – believed to be Italian – kicking down the door of an apartment block and then going from one apartment to the next, violently kicking doors down and threatening residents.

The residents inside were awoken by this in the early hours of the morning and had to barricade themselves into their own homes, some of them wielding kitchen knives out of fear of having to defend themselves should the aggressors break in.

The police did arrive on the scene within 12 minutes, but by then the aggressors had departed.

This could have been an incident with far worse consequences than eventually panned out. With residents getting more and more frustrated by what is happening week in, week out, every summer, and with a contingent of tourists who only come to Malta with the intention of getting drunk and ultimately being public nuisances, it feels like we are approaching the possibility of a severe flashpoint which can have significant consequences.

These all-too familiar problems have even resulted in Maltese residents being driven out of these localities because they simply cannot put up with them anymore – and who can blame them?

There needs to be decisive action: firstly a regulatory crackdown on short-let accommodation that is offered on websites such as AirBNB, with consequences for the accommodation occupants and its owner should rules be broken and inconvenience be caused. 

Police must then increase their patrols around the area, particularly in the middle of the night when the product of alcoholic revelry tends to stumble into the more residential areas of the neighbourhoods.

That the government has just signed into law a legal notice that makes sure non-residents pay fines for minor inconveniences on the spot is a good step forward – but incidents like that in St Julian’s reported this week are far graver than being minor.

Tourism has been Malta’s cash cow for decades now, but it feels as if the limit has not just been reached, but has now been crossed – and it’s the residents, particularly those living next to the known hotspots, who are suffering for it.