Too much noise and people in the streets, Palermo municipality condemned

The municipality of Palermo, sued in 2020 by four co-owners of a building in Via Cagliari leased by a company for non-hotel accommodation activities, was ordered to pay EUR 58,450 plus legal interest and EUR 8160 in litigation costs plus VAT and cpa because it did not take steps to contain the harmful effects of uncontrolled rioting in the street and in Via Cantavespri, Via Garibaldi and Piazza Sant'Anna due to the proliferation of pubs and clubs. Effects suffered by the guests of the facility who complained about the noise, music, and shouting of the participants in the fights that took place in the street.

The opening of numerous clubs in the area - the plaintiffs complained - 'in the absence of appropriate regulations and strict controls, had generated unsustainable noise pollution, caused by the diffusion of music at very high volume even outside the premises and well beyond the permitted hours, and by the noise and clapping produced by the large number of visitors who stayed in the street even after the closure of the businesses, until the early hours of the morning; continuous quarrels, also fomented by the consumption of alcoholic beverages, abandonment of waste of all kinds'.

The degradation that had been created in the streets near the extra-hotel activity," the sentence states, "had caused enormous inconvenience to the activities and serious financial damage to the plaintiffs, who had suffered in December 2012 the early termination of the tenant company that had entered into a nine-year lease contract for hotel and accommodation activities (in 2028 the owners of the property had entered into a contract with another company). No effective measures had been implemented by the municipal administration, which was responsible for monitoring compliance with the regulations on safety and public decorum.

The judge of the civil court, Giovanna Nozzzetti, writes in her sentence that 'despite the complaints, reports and interventions of the Municipal Police Nopa (mostly not as a result of organised controls but in response to individual reports), it does not appear that the municipal administration has really taken charge, in a serious and organic manner, of the need to reconcile conflicting demands, ensuring, in a balanced manner, the protection of the right to rest, the liveability of urban spaces, the enjoyment of private property, the exercise of economic activity and evening and night-time entertainment, without considering the safety and tranquillity of residents to be recessive with respect to the interests of shopkeepers and the enjoyment of patrons'.