Venice, Italy sick of the slovenly tourists [$675 fine for slobs]

Chicago Tribune ^ | May 25, 2007 | Tracy Wilkinson

[Sleeping Beauty]

Officials in Venice — as well as the handful of actual Italians still living in the lagoon city — have declared themselves fed up with a certain category of tourist: the pot-bellied, bare-chested, food-chomping, trash-spewing hordes that peak from now until autumn.

To combat what they see as a scourge, Venice authorities are distributing leaflets and posting posters with a new set of rules.

In St. Mark's Square, it is now forbidden to sit or recline under the porticos and on the steps along the Procuratie Nuove and the Ala Napoleonica, the buildings that ring the city's iconic St. Mark's Square. And don't even think of stopping alongside the Doge's Palace to nibble on a panino, a gelato or another snack.

"It is forbidden to stop to eat or drink anywhere other than at tables set out by public restaurants," the leaflet says. "It is forbidden to litter or leave behind wastepaper, cans, bottles and any other type of solid or liquid waste."

Even the sale of takeout food, a staple for tourists, is being banned around St. Mark's Square.

The trash, pizza crusts and pigeon excrement that coat the square are of particular concern to city officials and others who maintain that the rubbish is ruining the site, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country.

"I've been saying for some time that drastic measures are required," Augusto Salvadori, a senior tourism official, told the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.

And so, for now, the "decency patrols," as the local press calls them, will enforce the new rules.

Violators who litter, eat in undesignated areas or loiter under impermissible porticos may be fined up to 500 euros, or about $675.

[twigs]

The article doesn’t say that you have to pay to sit down at the seating provided by the restaurants. And it’s not cheap. I was dead tired when I got to St. Mark’s Square several years ago, but I wouldn’t sit down in the designated seats. You can’t sit anywhere in the little shops in Italy without paying for the pleasure. I wanted a cup of coffee one morning in Florence and wondered why everyone drinking their coffee—Italians and tourists alike—were standing up, bunched around the cash register, making it hard to order mine. It cost 1 euro for a cup of coffee; 3 euros for the privilege of drinking it sitting down. We learned to order food and look for another place to eat it. I think this is probably trying to get back at tourists who are trying to avoid their costs of sitting down.

[twigs]

I resented it too when I was there. And it affected the way I ate over there. I ate very light breakfasts and lunches, then ate a normal dinner, but nothing more. I bought water to drink in the day. We always tried to eat somewhere at least once during the day and later at dinner that had public facilities. The lady I was with ate a lot more and was always rushing for facilities. She paid a lot, too. She watched one woman—a local—whose small child had to go to the bathroom. She didn’t have the changed needed and the child just went standing there because she couldn’t wait. It’s a horrible system.