ANCONA Alleys transformed into urinals, drug dealing at all hours of the day and disorderly drunkenness that push people to be afraid of leaving their homes. The Plan flounders between degradation and violence and residents and traders no longer fit.
The initiative
This is demonstrated by a petition that began circulating a few days ago among shops and condominiums. An initiative that started from the bottom, addressed to the deputy mayor Giovanni Zinni and the commander of the Local Police Marco Ivano Caglioti, which in a short time has already collected hundreds of signatures. «The service of the anti-degradation patrols of the Local Police is requested» we read in the first line of the letter addressed to Palazzo del Popolo. «To say that the situation is critical would be to pay you a compliment» explains Daniele Bargellini of the Coal supermarket in Piazzale Loreto. He also signed the petition. «I arrive at 6.30 in the morning and at seven I’m already here» says Bargellini regarding a small group of misfits who gravitate to Piazzale Loreto, drinking and annoying customers at all hours of the day. «They insistently ask people for money and when they are under the influence, if they don’t receive it they start screaming. I saw them verbally attack a boy and an elderly man” is one of the examples of the supermarket owner. When they’re not “trying to steal food and drink.”
Criticalities
“Here there are people who pee in puddles, pulling down their trousers among people” say the sales assistants of an optician in Via Giordano Bruno, in front of the Coop superstore. Needless to say, “drugs are also in circulation”, so much so that “there is almost a curfew in the evening”. Therefore, the optics complain, “we need to restore some order”. “The presence of the police would be welcome, it would make us feel more at ease” explains Renato Radicchi of the newsstand in Corso Carlo Alberto. Residents ask to implement the local police’s anti-degradation service. Which already exists, even if “you can’t see it”. And if you see it, it only happens in the morning and not in the evening, when the Plan becomes like Gotham City. “We have reached the point that we no longer call the police, we make do on our own to remove those who are annoying” is the absurd compromise citizens have been forced into. «Near the shop there is a girl with a small child who (out of fear, ed.) doesn’t come out until her husband comes back» says Bargellini.
A situation that “makes us lose work”. Because people are afraid, so “they take two steps further or take the car to go where they feel calmer”. And the traders themselves aren’t doing well either. «At closing time we always try to go out in groups» is the strategy implemented by the supermarket in Piazzale Loreto.
The alcohol
Substances are also to blame, from alcohol to drugs. An example above all: yesterday morning there were people wandering around with two cartons of cooking wine in tow. And it was only eleven. This is the situation and “it involves a great sense of complete insecurity” write the promoters of the signature collection at the bottom of the document. A meeting in the municipality has already been scheduled for the next few days. Will it be the right time?
Antonio Pio Guerra
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