Nothing has changed since the round-table discussion held at the Senegalese Consulate weeks ago, according to merchants operating in the San Lorenzo neighborhood. Street vendors are still spreading white sheets and cardboard boxes on the ground in order to illegally sell their counterfeit goods to passersby. They are still scouring the veicoli looking for potential customers, regardless of the daily police presence and the zero tolerance policy put into effect by city officials.
Florentine daily newspaper, Il Firenze, reports that 70 percent of illegal street vendors in the area do not have legal working permits. The city’s first Senegalese councilor, Pape Diaw, has stated that the city is sending cultural mediators in the city’s ‘hot zones’ in order to avoid future clashes between merchants and police.
