Brit tourists run for cover as Marbella street vendors brawl with cops at beach bar

This is the moment Brit tourists fled for safety as a terrifying clash between beach vendors and police broke out at a restaurant in Marbella.

Shocking footage showed a scuffle between a Spanish police officer and at least two street vendors at a busy beach resort with customers fleeing as the brawl unfolded. The vendors appeared to be hitting one officer after he ended up on the floor. In another clip, the officer's helmet appeared to have been broken in the brawl.

One man repeatedly punched and kicked the officer and the other took a moment to pick up items that had fallen to the floor. The two vendors then ran away with backup coming to assist the officer.

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Tourists all fled the area with one British man being heard stating in the video: "What the f*** was that? [That was] mental." Another said: "That was the most insane thing I have ever seen."

The manager of the bar said: "Get out of here. Not in the [bar], not in the bar." The brawl happened amid a crackdown on illegal street vendors in Costa del Sol, as reported by MailOnline.

Beach vendors typically do not have licences to sell their products, which have a tendency to be counterfeit and are considered to be illegal. Earlier this year, Marbella police said they seized 12,300 fake designer brands from street vendors.

More than 8,000 of these were handbags, clothes and sunglasses. They added some 125 crime reports were issued.

Marbella town hall spokespersonFelix Romero told Sur: "For a tourist town like ours, this operation is very important because we cannot allow non-authentic replicas to proliferate, both for the image of our town and for the entrepreneurs who carry out their activity legally."

Many UK tourists have descended on Costa del Sol this year in the hope of taking advantage of the glorious sunshine. But many Brits have complained about beaches becoming exploitatively expensive and unkempt.

The Marina in Puerto Banú, located in Marbella, is known to attract a high net worth clientele of parties and yachters. One of the most popular luxury ports in the world, the Puerto Banús Marina is ripe with over 100 luxury brands to shop, offering personal shopping experiences and a bustling promenade of designer retailers.

But tourists have been calling out the marina for being exploitative of tourists and poorly maintained. One reviewer on TripAdvisor writes: “This is the most overrated site I have ever visited. The streets are filthy and full of people selling c*** and fake items. The restaurants are crowded and look cheap and outdated and honestly, suspicious…If at any point in time Puerto Banus was classy or beautiful, that time has passed a long time ago."