“It would be right to introduce an additional taxation for street food establishments, in short, those that do not offer their customers space and tables but force them to eat on the street”. This is the proposal put forward by the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt for the cities of art, including Florence, also to stem the phenomenon of “rush and escape” tourists, but above all because they get dirty by eating in the street. “The people who eat on the street – explains Schmidt, answering the question of whether he wants to introduce a” sandwich tax “- causes costs to the community because the streets then need to be cleaned of the oil from the sandwiches”.
An operation, according to the director, expensive: «We see it in the Uffizi at least twice a day. This is why I believe that those who sell food without offering the possibility to sit down should pay a tax so that the community can then use it to clean the city, a bit like the tobacco surcharge that was born because the community was forced to pay for so many. patients who were then hospitalized in oncological wards. And then the tax on street food would help a lot to compensate for the economic gap between those who offer only one product to swallow and those who offer a complete service ».
For Eika Schmidt «the oil in the sandwich and the ketchup are not good for the pietra serena, you have to clean it immediately otherwise it gets inside and the stain. We have to clean all the time. We think of the loggia, the Municipality thinks of the square and in fact the latter is made even worse ».
Confartigianato’s answer: “An absurd idea”
“It’s an absurd idea, even more so in this delicate moment of recovery.” Thus Confartigianato Imprese Firenze commented on the proposal: “We are absolutely opposed to this additional burden for the activities of the city, on which huge expenses and taxes and the crisis due to the pandemic are already thinking – says Paolo Gori, president of the trade and services area of Confartigianato Imprese Firenze – It is a meaningless idea. After a year of stoppage, the catering activities are finally getting back to work, recovering with difficulty: a new tax would condemn many businesses to closure. In these days we hear of an increase in the Tari, of a further tax we do not really feel the need “. For Gori, to counter the uncivil behavior of those who dirty and do not care for the city, “the only way is to increase controls and impose fines on those who dirty and do not respect the rules”.