Eating Near Monuments Banned, Italians in Uproar: Perhaps it should have been posed as a means to preserve the cultural heritage

Germans ate ice cream at the central fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome. Picture courtesy NYTimes.com

According to an article in The New York Times (“Buon Appetito, but Not Next to the Monuments“, by Elisabetta Povoledo, October 24, 2012), this month Rome instituted a new municipal ordinance outlawing eating and drinking and camping in areas of “particular historic, artistic, architectonic and cultural value”. The ordinance has been met with great opposition by Romans who have formed flash mobs with food on the steps leading to City Hall. The ordinance has been posed as a matter of civility and decorum. Perhaps opposition to it would be less if the ordinance had been posed as a means of preserving the cultural heritage of Rome since we all know that food and beverages can be destructive to stone, metal, wood, and other materials.

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