A sunny day in Rome. A table in the open with its own umbrella. A plate of pasta, a glass of wine, and a view of one of Europe’s most glorious monuments.
The only problem is no one else will be able glimpse more than fragments of the monument because of all the other open-air tables, each with its own huge umbrella and bevy of customers.
Several squares in central Rome have turned into virtual extensions of the surrounding bars and restaurants in recent years. Now the guardians of the city’s heritage have decided the time has come for a war on the encroaching white tablecloths.
City council officials will resume a piazza-by-piazza inspection of the centre on Monday, and will define, down to the last centimetre, how much of its cobbled surface may be given over to open-air catering.
The aim is to ensure that visitors who do not choose to pay the inflated prices that go with open-air food and drink still get a proper view of the city’s cultural treasures.
Among ”black spots” already identified is the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon. A writer for the newspaper Corriere della Sera counted 277 tables and 734 chairs arrayed in front of the classical world’s largest domed building last week. The Piazza della Rotonda, she said, had become a ”square that resembles a canteen”.
The official in charge of the clampdown, Gennaro Farina, said the area hidden under tables and chairs would be halved, at least. ”Occupation of publicly owned surfaces will be at the very most 10-15% of the available area,” he said. ”Today, it is 30%.”
Already, though, the city’s restaurateurs and barkeepers are preparing for a fight. A spokesperson damned the project as the work of ”a committee of bureaucrats who have decided the catering business is at the root of all evil”.
He said: ”No decision taken without consultation will be accepted.”
Renting space on a Roman piazza must be among the best investments on the planet. The right to extend your business on to a leading tourist venue like Piazza Navona costs a mere â,¬100 per square metre per year. Elsewhere, the price drops to â,¬70.
Yet many tenants are in arrears. Until recently the borough that covers most of the centre of Rome was owed â,¬3-million in rent.
A lot of bar and restaurant owners do not even ask before moving their furniture into the open. An investigation launched five years ago found police and local officials had been taking bribes in exchange for agreeing not to notice extra tables and chairs.
Since then the law has been applied with more rigour. In the first nine months of this year 878 fines were imposed for illegal occupation of publicly owned space. – Guardian Unlimited Â