“Forced to show an identity card to circulate in the historic center”
MESTRE – The announcement of the access fee was not digested by some citizens, so much so that an assembly was born from the “failure to publicly communicate the presentation by the administration”, which was held yesterday in a parish hall in via Manzoni in Carpenedo 130 people attended. Organized by residents of Venice and the mainland “without any flag”, to discuss the perplexities posed by the access fee which should start from next July.
THE OBJECTIONS
Among the reasons why citizens oppose the prescription of the Regulation is that «a system with a variable contribution between 3 and 10 euros will not discourage visitors from entering the city». It would be “the umpteenth surcharge aimed at hitting the pockets of the less well-off and non-overnight stayers” as explained by Giovanni Di Vito. The latter recalled how the proposal was born in 2016 from an attempt to solve the problem of excess tourism and in the form of an alternative tax to the tourist tax. The novelty provided for the establishment of the access fee to the historic city and the islands minors of the Lagoon even without a carrier, while the law of 30 December spoke of any carrier. “At the time Trenitalia had withdrawn,” Di Vito specified, because it could not provide for an integration of the ticketing. A modification, which then also took into consideration those who come on foot, by bike, by car. After illustrating the IT platform created by Venis, by accessing which “one can obtain the title to be shown in the event of checks”, Di Vito moved on to the excluded.
According to the regulation, residents have the possibility of showing an identity document showing their residence. «We will have to show the identity card – said Di Vito – but there is no law of the State that obliges you to bring the document with you. Although there are many exemptions from the fee, anyone who crosses the Venetian urban space will find themselves being monitored and having to justify their movements and their presence within it. We believe that this constitutes a serious interference in everyone’s private life, as well as complicating people’s lives”.
PENALTY RESIDENTS
The idea that emerged yesterday is also that the entrance fee will “play the daily life of the few remaining inhabitants of Venice”, forced to justify their relationships. “These are top-down solutions – added Di Vito – when a public investigation had to be carried out to be discussed with the citizens and not just follow the publication of an ordinance on the Municipality’s website”. A finding also reiterated by the Pd councilor Paolo Ticozzi, who specified that last September 11 councilors discussed the public discussion. «We had to involve the whole population, stressed Franco Schenkel, vice president of the Municipality of Venice, Murano and Burano. The objective of the access fee is to play up daily tourism, complicating life for the residents. No methodological response has been given on how to reduce the impact on tourism in Venice and Mestre».