Isla Mujeres Residents Blast Golf Cart Rentals for Taking Over Public Parking

Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo — Island residents are complaining that golf cart rental companies are using public spaces as their own private parking lots, including the area around the Javier Rojo Gómez market downtown, and that neither the Traffic Department nor the Quintana Roo Mobility Institute (IMOVEQROO) has stepped in.

Residents and tourists who come to shop or eat breakfast say they have nowhere to leave their vehicles. They note with frustration that the market parking area now looks like private property, and it is not unusual to find it almost entirely filled with golf carts, leaving no room for the cars and motorcycles of people arriving to buy meat, chicken, vegetables and other groceries or to eat at nearby businesses.

The complainants say this is not an isolated incident but a steady practice by several rental agencies that treat streets and public spaces as if they were their own yards. The companies leave their units parked for hours while they wait to be rented, and no authority says anything, residents say.

The frustration is growing because, while island residents circle the block looking for somewhere to leave a car or motorcycle, the rental units keep occupying the spaces. The problem affects not only shoppers but also market vendors, who watch customers leave because there is nowhere to park.

Residents are now asking the Traffic Department and IMOVEQROO to stop looking the other way and to enforce the law by clearing public spaces and fining the rental companies that treat the market parking lot as their own.