smorgasbord, a Norwegian word, means "eat of the table"

I guess I'm missing your point.

It's Friday morning, and there is no longer any sign of the "rental shade, tables and chairs" area. Gone. Even the chairs are gone. Just an empty area between Casa los Pajaros and La Perla.

Déjà vu. We've seen all this before and for all the same reasons. The restaurants complain that the Promotora de Playas (the folks responsible for the blue tents with the chairs) attract food vendors and create a bad image and don't maintain their facilities, so they convince the local government to remove them. Then all the busloads of tourists who are the only tourists the government focuses on attracting now (because in government quantity is always more important than quality any day) will start showing up and the local and state and federal officials and news media will all start hearing complaints from all these tourists about the lack of shade and chairs for the tourists who can't afford to consume in the relatively expensive La Ropa restaurants. Then meetings will take place, deals will be made, backs will be scratched, and the blue tents and beach chairs will appear once again on the beaches.

Personally I think they are butt ugly and I have always wished they would remove them since they first showed up on our beaches around 20 years ago. I'd rather see some public picnic areas with palapas near the beach and facilities for charcoal grills and PUBLIC RESTROOMS (free of charge of course) and PUBLIC PARKING (minimal fee if any). The beaches should be for everyone to enjoy, not just the privileged.

My response was taken out of context Rob.
Many people that read your board have not been to Zihua or Ixtapa yet.
I was attempting to let those considering either not to be misled by the certified beach controversy.
Many people need the beach right outside their door due to physical limitaions. Ixtapa has many visitors with this in mind that don't come to drink their faces off.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I didn't mean to take your comments out of context. I may not have read them correctly for trying to do too many things at once. Please forgive any misunderstanding in that regard.

I am also trying to promote Ixtapa and to get folks to discover its tranquility and its beauty and to help get its economy beyond the hotels kickstarted again. Another restaurant that has been there since Ixtapa was built, Da Baffone, just went belly up. Breaks my heart to see things like this.

The beach in Ixtapa has actually gained tourists. Many of us want a long, clean walking beach. A walking beach to us is level and does not require your eyes to be constantly downward looking for soft or sharp objects.
The tourists staying in Ixtapa actually love spending their money in Zihua as well.
There are three beach entry points from Ixtapa Blvd.

It amazes me that Zihua folks don't like the beach in Ixtapa, but Ixtapa lovers like both Zihua & Ixtapa.

Also I know that it will be said that Ixtapa lovers have not experienced real Mexico, however many of us have spent a lot of time in places like Rincon de Guayabitos, Barra de Navidad, Sayulita and San Pancho to name a few.

This way we can get the best of both.

I don't know why you would make untrue comments. First, no one was putting down Ixtapa, so you've for some reason made a false dichotomy of one versus the other.

Second, Ixtapa has ALWAYS had "a long clean walking beach" but if you can't watch what you're stepping on then I can certainly recommend an optician. Perhaps YOU don't miss the tourists who now no longer go to Ixtapa and who have been replaced by the all-inclusive crowd trying to drink their "money's worth" by their all-included poolsides, but I and hundreds of Ixtapa's merchants and their workers certainly miss them, and my condo-and home-owning friends are certainly having a harder time finding renters than before the regulations existed. I've got dozens of letters saved from folks who stopped going to Ixtapa because of the regulations, and I believe if you go back to some of the very first posts on this newer version of my Message Board you'll see messages from folks who stopped coming at the time when the new regulations were first implemented.

This isn't about you personally, so I regret if you took it personal as your response indicates. The regulations that you apparently don't mind have indeed caused us to lose important numbers of tourists and visitors from all economic strata. It's a matter I've been keeping track of since the regulations first went into effect and I started receiving letters and started noticing complaints by tourists on public forums and in the social and printed media as well as on local radio talk shows. Perhaps you and a few folks do continue leaving your hotels and condos to make purchases of local goods and services. You are the exception and we all thank you very much, but the overall tendency speaks for itself and I'm surprised you or anyone would even attempt to deny it. It's something most of us paying attention here in Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa are in complete agreement on. The only folks who seem to disagree with us of course are a few Ixtapa hotel managers defending their predatory practices and a minority of public officials looking to protect and boost their career opportunities.

But I sincerely thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter. I love Ixtapa and Playa El Palmar and I hope we can bring prosperity back to Ixtapa's commercial center and locally-owned lodgings in the residential area.

It amazes me that Zihua folks don't like the beach in Ixtapa, but Ixtapa lovers like both Zihua & Ixtapa.

Also I know that it will be said that Ixtapa lovers have not experienced real Mexico, however many of us have spent a lot of time in places like Rincon de Guayabitos, Barra de Navidad, Sayulita and San Pancho to name a few.

This way we can get the best of both.

This isn't about the Constituciôn or tourism, it's about the personal interests of a very few influential people.

The "certified beach" project in Ixtapa has cost Ixtapa tourists with the spending power we need. Apparently this matters nothing at all to the influent people pushing this policy.

How did the project in Ixtapa cost Ixtapa.....Tourists?

Dave

Because a substantial amount of tourists quit going to ixtapa after Playa El Palmar became a "playa certificada" because they could no longer enjoy the beach in the manner they were accustomed to. They couldn't walk their dogs on the beach. They couldn't take a stroll on the beach with a drink in hand if that drink was in a glass or styrofoam container. They couldn't have a picnic on the beach. They couldn't take styrofoam coolers to the beach as hundreds of tourists used to do daily. The city government never even noticed the drop in tourism because they neither measure it accurately and apparently they just don't care. Lots of long-term visitors with the spending power we need simply stopped coming, as is starkly evident by the almost always empty golf course and tennis courts. As long as the big high-rise hotels have large volumes of warm bodies in their all-included rooms it doesn't matter if more tourists are actually spending less and not buying anything off the hotel property. Meanwhile, restaurants that have been there for decades continue closing, shops continue closing, and the commercial shopping centers become a little more forlorn each day. Ixtapa is not providing nowhere near the benefit to the community it used to or is supposed to since the big hotels are now simply sucking the cash cow dry and then taking the cash elsewhere. Practically the only folks investing in Ixtapa now are corporate facades of corrupt politicians and other criminals looking to launder their money.

I have never seen anyone enforce any thing like that. I spend lots of time on the beach...5 days a week with my metal detector [doing my own cleaning] and a routine up to the massage tents..........

Not saying it has never happened like one poster says. But if it's the truth I see lots of "violations" daily.

I do see the people picking up the beach numerous times daily. I think they are doing a FANTASTIC job and commend them all!! Even though they give me the stink eye now and then.

Dave

A question for those with Ixtapa knowledge: those huge discos - Bogarts and Cristine - are they dinner clubs or just extremely loud and over-priced drinking spots? Is there a cover? Suitable for a couple of not-so-naïve 40 year olds?

(Yes, of course, we'll be dragging them away from the smorgasbords as often as we can, to show them the Zihua-area spots we love.)

I've been thrown out of a hotel there so I understand the comment by your friend. My friend,Julia and I. Not exactly thrown out but told where we could and could not be. None of that is why we just choose not to go to the beach there. Just a hassle since we are not a condo owner or people who rent there. Plus there are just too many other places we like better with no problems.

Keeping our beaches clean has always been a weakness of our local government. Local citizen groups used to pay to place trash bins on beaches, since the government had never done so in sufficient numbers, but then the government wouldn't remove the trash so the bins sat there overflowing. The local government has simply never been able to fine litterbugs or maintain our beaches clean until the "certified clean beaches" program with its BUDGET became available, then all of a sudden mountains moved and pigs flew and miracles seemed to happen because a special new budget became available in this paradise of non-accountability and zero transparency.

The federal government's national water commission known by its acronym as Conagua has convinced folks in the public and private sectors that tourists are looking for beaches certified as clean. After several years of this program here I have yet to meet or hear about one single tourist who came here because Playa El Palmar was "certificada" (though I know for a fact we have lost hundreds of tourists because of its restrictions, possibly thousands), but of course as we keep chasing our customary rather well-educated tourists away and replacing them with the typical dumbed down all-inclusive herd of cows who could care less about anything unique about Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa and are just looking for "bang for the buck" and to drink away their vacation by a pool, pretty soon they'll be brainwashed just perfectly to follow the bouncing ball and stay wherever they're told. Today it's the "certified beach", tomorrow it'll be the "certified vacation destination" with its "certified hotels" and its "certified servants" with their "certified smiles" speaking their "certified language" with their "certified accent" serving "certified cocktails" dressed in their "certified costumes" and wearing their "certified hair style" saying all the right "certified platitudes" to the "certified tourists" spending just enough of their "certified money" to keep the "certified investors" certifiably wealthy. I swear it almost makes me want to puke that people even fall for this crap!

Here are the "certified beach" rules. Sounds like a place where you can have absolutely NO FUN. Though I don't mind the part about banning the stupid flying incendiary devices (globos de cantoya) and leaving the wildlife alone.

I know of two 10 meter access lots on Playa Blanca that aren't built on. Both of them are fenced. And the owner of an adjacent 10 meter let who will "sell" you both of them~