TRENT. The face-to-face meeting between exhibitors, the Municipality of Trento, the Province and above all the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, during which the stalls and the revision of the regulation for their management, did not go as expected. In fact, on the part of the exhibitors, the expectations were very different: “If they had told us before arriving with slides, photographs and documentation, we would have prepared ourselves in a decidedly different way, but instead none of this was mentioned to us”, observed the president of Confesercenti del Trentino, Massimiliano Peterlana, without hiding a certain annoyance towards the Superintendence.
And the manager of the latter, Franco Marzatico, illustrated in a detailed presentation all the numbers, data and the most important elements of the work carried out in the last period: on 2,563.21 square meters requested by the operators, the approval rate was 93% (i.e. 2,382.81 square metres), for a total of 477 tables and therefore 1,906 seats (imagining four per table). Out of 96 applications analyzed by the Superintendence, 72 were authorized with an average time for each of approximately 29 days (in 66 cases), while in only one case the time reached 60 days, i.e. the maximum available to make a decision.
«Those of the operators are exaggerated alarmism and I don’t understand the fury towards us – added the Superintendent. – In some situations, we regretfully had to limit this space. I am thinking of Palazzo Tabarelli, or the reduction of one meter in via Belenzani, but also of other areas where we have thought in terms of visibility of monuments. Comparing myself with other colleagues from northern Italy, I noticed that this “lively” alarmism is only present here. We are open to dialogue and discussion, but we must resolve this issue by reasoning on the “great beauty” of the city, on the balance between monuments and commercial activities”.
Once the Superintendence’s presentation was over, Peterlana’s reply arrived, wanting to reiterate the position of the organization represented: «It’s sorry that Marzatico was offended by the exhibitors’ comments in the local press, but we are a union and as such we must act, defending the positions of our members. To date, despite the various letters sent to the Municipality and Province to discuss the redevelopment of the city also from the point of view of the audience, there have been few discussions, as have the responses. And we have never had an exchange of opinions with the Superintendence. Nobody wants to impoverish the city’s artistic world, but in the latter there are over 170 businesses, with very high turnover and employee numbers: the economic impact is therefore clear to everyone.”
Also present were the provincial vice-president Francesca Gerosa – who reiterated “the need for a calm discussion with a view to supporting businesses, considering the importance of outdoor spaces also for economic revenue” – and the municipal councilor Monica Baggia, with the latter who explained what the next steps will be: «We are working to reform the regulation, which is currently too cumbersome. With the exemptions that arrived during the pandemic, control of the situation was lost: we will try to provide homogeneity, with a different philosophy that takes the areas into account.”
The collapse of categories
Although appreciated by the operators, the work carried out by the Superintendence to illustrate the issue of stalls in the city center did not contribute to calming people’s minds. Indeed, with a bitter smile, even the president of the Trentino Public Business Association, Fabia Roman, defined it as “a real ambush”. Yes, because the photographs, data and explanations provided by the representative of the Superintendency, Franco Marzatico, were not foreseen in what was supposed to be a clarifying meeting, but nothing more.
«If we had known it before, we too would have prepared documentation which, despite having already presented it in other places, would have been useful to strengthen our position – added Roman. – Instead, in doing so, we were not given the opportunity to express our point of view. And it’s a real shame because the activities we represent are safeguards of legality, safety and sociality in the area. Without our bars, the city would not have the “life” that characterizes it. Here because we would have preferred an equal comparison, which unfortunately was not the case».
Francesco Antoniolli, representative of the restaurateurs, is also on the same wavelength, regretting the “direction” that the confrontation has taken. And even when faced with the data provided by Marzatico, Antoniolli said he was skeptical and, above all, wanted to underline how the latter refer to very different elements compared to the real needs of the operators: «We were shown the square meters granted , but it must be considered that perhaps a business that needs a lot of space has received authorization, while other small businesses with smaller requests have not been authorized. It is clear to everyone that Marzatico loves the city and that, in this sense, the relationship with culture has made a decisive leap forward in recent years. However, we must defend our members and their requests: the numbers provided are misleading, as are the images chosen to describe some situations, presented with the “right perspective” precisely to support the position of the Superintendence”.
Antoniolli’s reference, in this case, focused on a photograph of Piazza Pasi, in which Marzatico ironically wrote “find the fountain”, with the latter actually appearing hidden in the photograph by the bar tables. “We understand the need to keep the monuments visible, but if we had been notified in advance we could have shown other images from a different perspective, to demonstrate for example how the fountain is clearly visible: unfortunately we were not given this possibility”, they concluded Roman and Antoniolli.
