Latest news with #Laganas
The Sun
04-07-2025
- The Sun
Inside Brit party holiday hotspot where drug-fuelled teens urinate on each other & terrorise island on high-speed quads
A TEENAGER off his head on booze climbs on to the balcony of a club's VIP section, drops his trousers and urinates on the revellers dancing below. A few doors down, cannabis-laced vodka cocktails are openly on sale while laughing gas balloons are being flogged in the smoky backroom of a bar for 20 euros a box. 11 11 11 Meanwhile, a quad bike overloaded with screaming tourists taking selfies roars down the street at high speed — with none of the young passengers wearing helmets. And British DJ Kai Roberts, 24, was left in a coma on Sunday following a quad bike crash on the Greek island. Thankfully his condition has since improved, although his mother says it's 'going to be a long recovery'. Incredibly, these are all incidents that took place on the Laganas strip on Zante AFTER a massive police crackdown was enacted. We can reveal that 50 cops from the capital Athens were parachuted in to claw back control. Bouncer Collins Michaels says corrupt bar owners and out-of-control Brits have been responsible for dozens of casualties at the notorious Laganas party resort before the Greek government took action. Pulling back his shirt to reveal a stab wound on his right arm, Collins, 54, told The Sun: 'The young kids never stop being naughty because this is often their first time on holiday without their parents. 'I often see teenagers climb on to the balcony of the VIP section at my club then pee on the people below. 'I was stabbed in my arm by a tourist as I was trying to control a group of kids in 2016. The wound was really deep and I spent two weeks in hospital. The strip was rampant — completely out of control — before the crackdown last year and there was so much fighting. 'Something needed to be done or more lives were going to be lost.' Brit DJ, 24, in coma after horror quad bike accident on party island Zante where he had landed 'amazing' club residency 'Last year went crazy' Kai, from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, is the latest visitor to end up in dire straits having moved to Zante to work as a DJ this summer. He was a passenger on a quad bike that slammed into a wall on a coastal road on the island at around 5pm local time. Kai — who was due to fly home two days after the crash — is still in hospital, having been treated for a bleed on the brain, according to his brother Corey Roberts, 18. The DJ allegedly had to wait an hour for an ambulance before he was taken to the general hospital on Zante. After a CT scan revealed the bleed, he was flown to the Greek mainland where he was put in a medically induced coma at Ioannina University Hospital. The quad bike driver escaped with minor injuries. Corey said: 'My brother is my idol. He's well known, and everywhere he goes everyone loves him.' I last visited Laganas in 2018 after a group of 17 British teens were taken to hospital having drunk bootleg booze containing the deadly chemical methanol. Two years earlier, Hannah Powell, 21, was left fighting for her life and with just ten per cent eye function after drinking a cocktail laced with the same substance, which bar owners had been adding to their home brew to cut costs. Hannah, from Ormesby, Middlesbrough, also needed a kidney transplant and said: 'I was blind — I didn't realise at the time. I thought we had the curtains shut.' But my research has found that the constant chaos and carnage that became the hallmark of Laganas got even worse after Hannah was blinded. 11 11 Sigouros Raftopoulos runs three of the six private medical clinics on Laganas Road that provide first aid and ambulance services. He says there was a worrying number of quad bike, scooter and car accidents before police from the capital were flown in. He said: 'Last year went crazy. There were so many cases that involved air ambulances and transfers to Athens. 'We have lots of road accidents. Compared to this time last year we are 50 to 60 per cent down. We are seeing around 20 patients a day total, but during high season it could be 40 to 50 patients. 'You can see the strip is less crazy now. The quality of the booze has been upgraded and there are a lot more police, a lot more checks and a lot more controls.' In 2011, Robert Sebbage, 18, from Tadley, Hants, was stabbed to death outside a fast-food restaurant in Laganas after one of his group pointed a laser pen at a taxi driver's eye. Four other British teenagers from Basingstoke were wounded in the 3am attack. Another low point came when US university graduate Bakari Henderson, 22, died of severe head injuries after he was battered by bouncers working at Bar Code in July 2017. The fight was captured on video and reportedly kicked off after he tried to take a selfie with a waitress. It then spilled outside, where eight security guards repeatedly stamped on his head before leaving him unconscious on the ground. Six Serbian nationals, a 34-year-old Greek and a 32-year-old British national of Serbian descent were among those arrested and charged with voluntary manslaughter. In 2022, five of them were convicted of intended fatal bodily harm while another was convicted of fatal bodily harm, and all were handed jail sentences from ten to five years. But even that did not stop the violence. In July 2023, British tourist James Taylor, 18, was caught on camera being repeatedly beaten by four bouncers at CherryBay nightclub in Laganas. James, from Middlesbrough, suffered two black eyes, a swollen jaw, injuries to his head, a bust lip and a cut on his knee. He claimed he was set upon after standing on a chair to take a selfie. We have lots of road accidents. Compared to this time last year we are 50 to 60 per cent down. We are seeing around 20 patients a day total, but during high season it could be 40 to 50 patients. Sigouros Raftopoulos The footage went viral on social media and a Serbian national was arrested — yet workers at the club tried to justify the attack by saying James had beaten a teenage girl, even posting photos to 'prove' it. Then last year, after 12 people aged 17 to 23 were charged with attempted homicide and weapons violations following a knife fight at a bar, the Greek government finally decided to take action. Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis announced that 40 police officers and ten drug enforcement agents were being dispatched to Zante — also known as Zakynthos. He said: 'We are committed to ensuring the safety of residents and visitors. The reality in Zakynthos will significantly improve.' Security worker Collins, who also runs the Happy Traveller speedboat rentals company, says the 'craziness' has calmed down considerably since then. He said: 'Before, some bouncers were not professional. They thought security work was all about flexing muscles and going to the gym and taking steroids. 11 'Then, when the teenagers would start doing crazy things, they would beat them up. 'It's more peaceful now because there is more police control. 'Before, it was only local police and they tended to turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour if it was carried out by other locals. But now, with the Athens police overseeing them, they have no choice but to take action. 'A few bars and clubs have been closed down for breaking the law or playing music too loud after midnight. 'A message has been sent out that bouncers can't hit kids any more and the tourists have been told to report anyone who gets rough with them. 'Lethal death juice' 'I would say it's 80 per cent under control now — but it will never be completely peaceful as we have so many of you crazy Brits here in July and August.' When the Sun visited Laganas, thousands of teens were marauding down the main strip by 11pm on Saturday, many of them celebrating the end of their A-levels. Girls in tight-fitting dresses stumbled down the street sucking on vapes or clutching vibrators, while lads in outrageous fancy dress outfits were downing luminous shots inside the bars. The air was clammy and filled with the constant roar of quad bikes, which can be rented for 50 euros a day. One we spotted tearing down the strip at high speed was being ridden by three helmetless teenagers — a young lad and two girls — who were posing for a selfie being taken by the driver. Meanwhile, a Medusa Stoned Eyes cocktail laced with cannabis was on sale for 14 euros at a bar that also specialised in shisha pipes. In the backroom of another bar, a man was flogging laughing gas for 20 euros a box. When asked if a balloon could be purchased and taken outside, the bearded salesman said: 'No, they are illegal on the island.' Marijuana products were openly on sale alongside sex toys at the racier stores that lined the strip alongside those flogging typical tourist tat. Ralph Goodwin, 18, Will Bloch, 17, Monty Munday, 18 and John Simmons, 18, said they had been offered drugs during their week-long lads' holiday to Zante. Ralph, from Haslemere in Surrey, had just finished his A-levels and said: 'They don't sell it inside the bars and clubs, but we've had random people approach us in the street and offer to sell us cocaine. 'There's no ketamine here and we're not into drugs anyway. 'We just want to go out and have a good time and we've had a great lads' holiday. The only annoyances have been the bouncers, who are still really aggressive, and the ambulance workers, who will try to fleece you. 'A friend needed an IVF drip after drinking too much the other night and they charged him 450 euros. The booze here is deadly. I call it lethal death juice because a lot of it is home made. 'But in one place we were given three shots of water — literally water — and two cocktails for ten euros.' Bridget Carty, Livy Wiley and Emily Lappin, all 18 and from Marlborough, Wilts, were also celebrating the end of their A-levels, having paid £500 each for their package holiday. Livy said: 'We're all terrified of getting our drinks spiked. 'The taxi driver who picked us up at the airport warned us not to drink alcohol in the bars and clubs. 'He said the drink is 'strange' and it is 'easy to drug'. 'We had drinks at our accommodation before we went out yesterday and we covered our glasses with our hands all night, but we still had a good time.'
Irish Times
02-07-2025
- Irish Times
Leaving Cert party on Zante: ‘If I had children, I wouldn't want them to go on a holiday like this'
After the gruelling Leaving Certificate , thousands of Irish students look to let off steam in what has become a rite of passage: the post-exams holiday. The Greek island of Zakynthos – better known as Zante – has become one of the most popular destinations, and this week it is buzzing with Irish teenagers enjoying blistering heat, booze cruises and beach parties. 'If I had children, I wouldn't want them to go on a holiday like this,' says Sarah Gadaloff (18) from Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin. She is staying by the Laganas strip in Zante, describing the nightlife there as 'terrifying and good at the same time'. READ MORE 'My mum didn't want me to go,' she says, 'but you have to let your children have fun after the Leaving Cert.' The island's natural beauty, crystal-clear waters and turtle sanctuary are all incidental attractions. The main pull for Irish Leaving Cert holiday goers is meeting other students who have graduated from secondary school for one last hurrah. Crowds gathered outside of Sizzle night club in Laganas, Zante. Photograph: Niamh Browne Gadaloff, a competitive showjumper who plans to work full time in the sport from September, says she went 'because everyone else was going and that's the whole point. To be with everybody.' For her boyfriend Victor Lace (18), the trip is a chance to meet former classmates. He did not sit the Leaving Cert last month, having opting instead to move to Poland to pursue a professional football opportunity six months ago. 'I have been away now for a long time, so I am excited to see all my mates, all my old friends, it has been amazing.' Victor Lace (18) pictured on the beach in Zante. Photograph: Niamh Browne Of the resort, he says: 'When I first came it was a bit mad, like. It was hectic. There's quad bikes flying around the place, people are in the clubs, and all this, but you kind of get used to it. 'You get different types of characters when you walk down the road. You can expect anything in Zante.' Signs advertising both strip clubs and a smoke shop on the strip in Laganas, Zante. Photograph: Niamh Browne Many of the local bars provide free drink to lure a crowd but one student who is not influenced in such offers is Ryan Treacy (19), who hopes to study commerce and Spanish in UCD in September. 'I don't drink alcohol, actually. To be honest, it's been the same as any other time I go on a night out. I just enjoy being around people I love, and all that kind of stuff. So it hasn't changed my experience at all.' That said, Treacy found one of the flagship parties in Zante, the 'white party', to be 'disappointing at first'. He says: 'It was so packed ... you couldn't move, which I didn't really like but then eventually I was around loads of people that I knew.' Ryan Treacy, a 2025 Dublin leaving cert student who hopes to study commerce and Spanish in September pictured on the Laganas beachfront The white parties – typically occurring each Sunday during the summer – are named after their dress code. Attendees don all-white ensembles at the Karma Club Zante, a venue with a 400sq m pool, 40 day beds, a DJ deck and a shisha lounge. 'I think Leaving Cert holidays are good because it's the last time you get to see the whole year together in one place,' says Ryan Lynch, who is turning 19 on Saturday, and hopes to do a football course with the FAI in Clondalkin. The teenager, who plays for the Ireland international six-a-side team and Leinster youth, says he is 'mostly surviving in the extreme heat'. 'I was over in Moldova playing football in this heat as well. At least now I don't have to run around in the heat. It's a bit better,' he says. Ryan Lynch (18) on the beach in Zante. Photograph: Niamh Browne Students have been warned about scams, and Lynch says: 'I think it's safer to use cash if possible. People can scan cards, so I'd be a bit wary of that. 'Make sure to use your safe when you got to a hotel because a lot of people complain about stuff getting taken from their room when I arrived,' he adds. One scam that hasn't fazed the Irish teenagers is the existence of street 'challenges' along the Zante strip. 'Me and my friends, we did the football one. I think if you score three goals in a row you get a bottle of champagne. Of course when people are drunk they are wasting €100 on that and falling all over the place. It's kinda funny,' says Treacy. Tourist queue for a kebab at the end of the night in Laganas, Zante With Zante being the stuff of nightmares for most parents, what precautions are the group taking to put their elders' minds at ease? 'Most people have their location on, just in case,' says Victor Lace. 'Even for me, I share my location with my parents and my friends. In case anything happens.' Gadaloff has a similar policy. 'My parents can track my phone but I think that's more of a case of if I lose my phone not 'Where are you?'.' She adds: 'Parents are definitely tracking their children and seeing what time they are home. I'd say some of the parents are a little bit dramatic with their tracking.' [ Leaving Cert holidays 2025: Pupils and parents on 'hellish' Albufeira, 'crazy' Zante and 'cultural' Berlin Opens in new window ] Irish market manager for travel company Life is a Beach Party Seán Egan agrees with the wisdom of sharing your live location. He warns against bars selling cheap alcohol: 'If there's a bar selling two drinks for €6 stay away from it. If you're providing quality alcohol you're not going to be able to sell two drinks for €6. Just be careful, look out for each other and stick together as groups.' Seán Egan Irish market manager with Life is a Beach Party, a travel company that specialises in student and post-Leaving Cert holidays In his experience, the locals prefer Irish tourists to other nationalities. 'I have been told this by a lot of hotel owners and managers: 'The Irish, yes they are a bit rowdy, a bit noisy but as soon as you tell them to be quiet they listen'.' The parting wisdom from students themselves is to enjoy the holiday – and not to get too caught up in the nightlife. 'I'd tell people not to get sucked in to focusing on the strip and wasting all your energy and not sleeping,' says Lynch. For him, it's primarily about celebrating friendship. 'It's like a reunion but in Greece. It's kind of a last goodbye. Some of these people you will never see again. There's so many people here from our year, there's a chance that we are not going to see ever again.'
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Why this infamous Greek party island is shedding its reputation and going upmarket
Shipwreck Beach on the island of Zante (also known as Zakynthos) is one of Greece 's most photographed spots, with the skeletal remains of a ship lying in the centre of its golden sands. We're whizzing towards the shore on a speedboat tour of the southernmost of the Ionian islands, to which Corfu and Kefalonia also belong. It's a beautiful location surrounded by high limestone cliffs that attracts thousands of holidaymakers, many taking day trips from the resort of Laganas with its bars and cheap hotels popular with young Britons. Yet there's another side to Zante that remains virtually untouched by tourism: a patchwork of olive groves and farms covering large parts of the island linked by quiet lanes and one-track roads. Devastated by an earthquake in 1953, many islanders left Zante - and much of the landscape has remained undiscovered ever since. But not Shipwreck Beach. It's become such a popular attraction you're no longer allowed to swim off the sands due to restrictions to control overtourism. Instead, on our early morning visit we escape before the main daily crowds arrive and head to a nearby beach for a dip in the aquamarine waters, and then cruise into the Blue Caves. Here we leap into the vivid, teal-coloured water, created by sunlight reflecting off the limestone walls, giggling at the sight of our legs and arms glowing Smurf-blue beneath the surface. Our watery tour is part of discovering the other side of Zante including a new wave of luxury hotels whose owners hope to change the island's reputation and encourage visitors to explore beyond the southern coast resorts. Our first base is the recently opened King Jason Zante, an adults-only, all-inclusive resort where the big draw is the Maldivian-style rooms, many with terraces that open straight onto the patchwork of pools that form a lattice down a hillside. It's blisteringly hot when we arrive, touching 40C, so the cool, modernist design - lots of pale grey concrete and glass walls - is welcome. The suites continue the Maldivian ethos, with the king-sized bed in the centre of the room, a retractable screen separating the open plan bathroom behind. It's a world away from the simplicity that lies outside. The next day we hire a car and follow the winding lanes into the island's quiet hinterland, stopping to drink thimbles of thick, bitter coffee on the ramshackle square in the quiet village of Keri. THE sun beats down as we wander along silent alleyways leading between one-storey whitewashed houses with faded blue doors and window shutters. Muted conversations float out from the darkness inside. 'This is what makes Zante special,' says Venia Xenou, whose family owns the Olea All Suite Hotel, which re-set the bar for luxury accommodation when it opened in 2018. 'Farming is still the most important economy here. Tourism is growing but the trick is to do it without disturbing the traditional way of life. We look at other islands, where overtourism is a problem, and think no, we don't want that here.' The Olea All Suite could have been the template for the King Jason, with the same arrangement of swimming pools and rooms opening directly onto the water. The vibe is slightly different, though. Guests are a little younger and there's more of a club, Ibiza-style feel, although the sandy-floored, open-sided Cocoon bar and restaurant (shoes definitely optional) is straight out of an Indian Ocean resort. The vibe is slightly different at the Olea All Suite, where guests are a little younger and there's more of a club feel The biggest treat is the Flow restaurant, set high on the hillside, where tables and a clutch of spherical basket chairs are positioned to make the most of the gorgeous view across the valley below. Dinner at Flow - succulent seabass fresh off the boat and flamegrilled lamb - is so lovely it seems impossible to better. Yet our final night at the Lesante Blu - a waterfront resort with a stretch of private beach - proves to be the most memorable of all. As the sun dips, a violinist steps on to the square of lawn between the restaurant tables and begins to play, accompanied by a background DJ. The sound is exquisite, the whole elegant experience the polar opposite of the hectic streets of Laganas. As the music emanates, I think of all the post A-level students on our flight, giddy with excitement for their first trip away. It makes me hope that rather than simply turning into a fully-blown 'party island' - or becoming a luxury retreat - Zante will adapt to accommodate both.
