The earliest spring rays have begun to warm our little world (after the fog, that is), and I detect the tiniest sensation of the world opening up somehow, a barely perceptible air of relaxation. It’s a lovely feeling, long awaited, and I would say almost entirely illusory. Because while the temperature may be ever-so-gently rising, and the minuscule blossoms just beginning to emerge from their twigs, pandemic Venice, Veneto, and Italy are still struggling.
Every day over the past few weeks has brought ominous new bulletins, decrees, adjustments in prohibitions and permissions, all expressed in a revolving series of colors applied to Zones. We’ve already gone through being a Red, then Orange, then Yellow, then Orange again. At one point scattered places were Dark Red, and even Dark Orange. At this rate, keeping up with these variations in contagion will probably drive us to color the map with splotches of wenge, celadon, amaranth, sarcoline, burnt sienna, Paynes grey, Prussian blue, and any of the other 1,114 spot colors from the Pantone system. Amazingly, there is one “White” zone (Sardinia). Not sure how they’ve managed it, or if it’s even true today. It was true yesterday.
For the record, Venice — or rather, the Veneto — was in the Yellow zone till last Monday, when it was demoted to Orange. Those days were brief; tomorrow, Monday, March 15 (hello, Ides) it will be Red again, and will persist through Easter. So there goes that holiday. There has been a disturbing increase in hospitalizations, and most of these patients have gone straight into the Intensive Care Unit. In fact, all of Italy is now Red, except Sardinia.
Red Zone basically means lockdown. Stay home. The only stores that can be open are supermarkets, newsstands, tobacco shops, pharmacies, eyeglasses, hardware, fuel. Also bookstores, plants and flower shops/nurseries, cosmetic/perfume shops (who on God’s earth is wearing makeup?) and shops selling sporting goods, even though it’s forbidden to gather to play a sport. A run to buy new equipment for your home gym is okay, seeing that you’re not going anywhere anymore.
If you must go out, your needs had better fit into one of these three categories: Work (justified; if the police stop you, they will call your purported boss to confirm that you have to be out); health (doctor’s appointment, hospital, etc. Manicures do not count as health, though I think a visit to your therapist probably does); serious necessity (visiting your housebound mother to feed her lunch, etc.). Beyond these three categories, a big fine is coming your way.
Yep — just like a year ago. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who haven’t been wearing masks. Looking at you, bright spark at the newsstand who only puts on his mask when his friends tip him off to the approach of a police officer, thereby cleverly avoiding a fine. Then he takes it off again. “Give me liberty or give me death,” Patrick Henry famously stated several centuries ago. Try it today and the response would be “Hey, you can have both.”
Two weekends ago, when the city was still Yellow, so many people tried to come to Venice that the traffic was being counted, and at a certain point cars were made to turn around and depart. The same with some streets. But don’t get excited, because that was only during the two weekend days (note: sunny and warm), and considering how many hotels are still closed, these visitors were only intermittently profitable.
In any case, all those people were often always too close together, and masks were not always used. The headline two days ago: “The Veneto is back in full epidemic, hospitalizations are 50 more each day.”
The economic effects of all this? Here’s one of myriad indicators: In the past 12 months, passenger traffic at Marco Polo airport has dropped 89 per cent. Pick a business or attraction at random and be appalled by similar statistics.
Some gondoliers had tentatively begun to work, primarily on weekends; it was lovely to see them out again. Yet this was but a flicker on the grainy film, metaphorically speaking, of the city’s economy. Last Saturday, a friend who works at one of the gondola stations at the Piazza San Marco had a few clients, as did some of his colleagues. At the end of the day, they all put their money in a hat (or something) and divided it equally. My friend went home with 35 euros.
As of tomorrow, he won’t be out at all, so they can put the hat away. Easter used to be an epic interlude for tourists. Now we’ll be eating lamb and chocolate eggs at home alone, like last year. For Easter weekend (April 3-5) one visit to family or friends per day is allowed within the Region, “Maximum two adults with children under 14 years old or persons who are disabled or not self-sufficient who live with them.”
The city is gaunt. Life is gaunt. All the flesh of ordinary life — parties, festivals, big events, family gatherings, making plans, going places, and above all, working — has been starved away, and only the bones seem to be left.
Speaking of bones, every business is in crisis. Here’s an idea somebody came up with: Stop paying taxes. “Fiscal disobedience” is what Paolo Bianchini calls it. He is president of MIO (Movement of Hospitality Businesses), and told Il Giornale that the group has launched legal action against paying the taxes from last March till now.
“This is because our industry has had an average national collapse of 57 per cent, with peaks of 70/80 even 100 per cent. It’s enough to remember that there are businesses that since last March have never reopened. Our legal system foresees ‘the impossibility of paying,’ so just imagine that it wouldn’t be recognized in a period of world pandemic such as this one.”
The protest is being made by restaurants, hotels, bars. pizzerias, pubs, shops, wholesalers, distributors, and freelancers with a financial registration code. “All workers,” he says, “that can’t manage to pay the myriad fair and unfair taxes, when the fiscal pressure has reached 70 per cent of the gross income. ” Please pause and read that last part again.
“All of this in front of a collapse of earnings of -57 per cent, an extremely high number that in some sectors reaches as far as -95 per cent.”
Which taxes are these? “Trash collection,” he begins; “the tax on shop signs…and the contributions to Inps (Social Security) except for contributions for employees. And they still have to explain why we, mostly little entrepreneurs, have to pay the tax on shop signs if we’ve been obliged for six months to keep them turned off.”
Businesses notorious for evading taxes? Fun fact: Italian companies are the second-most heavily taxed businesses in the EU (14.1 per cent, just after The Netherlands’ 14.2 per cent). They pay 101.1 billion euros a year to the government via taxes, levies, tributes, imposts, and contributions.
“The cruel reality is that, even before Covid, we struggled to finish each month with a profit,” Bianchini continued. “So just imagine now, with a fall in business of 50/60/70 percent.” So MIO will be fighting the law by using it against itself.
“Five to seven years could pass with appeals, and various grade of judicial procedure, before receiving a final judgment. Of course we’ll reach an agreement before that, but meanwhile we won’t pay anything for two or three years and we don’t risk any type of foreclosure. And in any case, it’s a battle that we have to win. The hospitality industry accounts for 30 per cent of the gross domestic product; without it, the Italian economy will never be able to recover.”
Here ends the glimpse of the San Marco area these days. I have about a thousand more photos, but these seemed enough to give an idea of the state we’re in.
Next time, images of life as she has been lived in via Garibaldi lately.
