Cocktails and beer must stay inside bars and restaurants. No glass bottles and containers
outside nightspots from 10pm to 3am. These are new, tough rules for Florence
for the coming months.
The
new package of city ordinances was greenlighted by local
officials to check a worrisome rise in alcohol consumption that has triggered
an increase in vandalism and dangerous behaviors; like the damage that was
recently done to the Rape of Polyxena’, explained Florence’s prefect,
Andrea de Martino.
The
new rules governing alcohol consumption cover Florence’s historic centre. From
April 1 to May 31, from 10pm to 3am, all bars, restaurants and open-air street
vendors in the city center are required to sell alcohol that is to be consumed
indoors only. ‘Who wants to drink alcohol must stay inside’, affirms De
Martino.
Bars and nighttime
locales will be able to serve non-alcoholic beverages to be consumed outdoors;
however they must be in plastic cups or bottles. The new restrictions are meant
to keep broken glass off the streets and behavior under control.
Another measure aims
to fight the illegal sale of alcohol in Florence piazzas and city streets by
street vendors; it is now prohibited to sell alcohol without a permit. This
ordinance is also in effect every day, all day, from April 1 to May 31.
More local police
will be on the beat to ensure that residents and visitors abide by the new
rules. Transgressors face a 200 euro fine or up to three months in jail.
Bar
owners and restaurateurs in the city center are protesting the restrictions.
Manager of Moyo and Zoe, Lorenzo Segre, says he is ‘rather contrary’ to the
limits on nighttime alcohol consumption: ‘I don’t think that we can solve the
problem of urban degradation with more rules and restrictions … because if you
go into a bar and drink five cocktails and go outside drunk, the risk of
vandalism remains.’
What’s needed, Segre
maintains, is more civil education. ‘I travel a lot, mostly abroad, and what I
can say is that the love and respect other people have for their cities does
not exist in Italy, especially in Florence,’ he told the Corriere Fiorentino.
Palazzo
Vecchio will also spend 60,000 euro to provide nighttime bar-goers and
motorists with a free public transport service. Three Ataf buses will run free
of charge, from 10m to 4am, from parking lots in the periphery to the city
center (and vice versa) on the nights on which the Ztl notturna is ineffect
(Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, as of April 1). Buses will pass every 17 minutes.
