The Associazione Piazza San Marco writes to the prefect, the chief of police and Venice city council’s special commissioner regarding the squalid situation in St Mark’s Square

National and local newspapers have for days now been reporting on the squalid situation in the city and the St Mark’s area due to a chaotic tourist invasion and the constant presence of illegal hawkers. After many reports, the Associazione Piazza San Marco through its president Alberto Nardi has written a letter to the prefect Domenico Cuttaia, the chief of police Angelo Sanna and Venice city council’s special commissioner Vittorio Zappalorto asking for an urgent meeting on these burning questions. Nardi says that the ‘tourist squalor is fueled by the increasingly aggressive presence of illegal hawkers selling fake products’. Specifically, Nardi explains, ‘the dramatic situation in St Mark’s Square suffers from its own peculiarities, related to the presence of bands of Bengali citizens who, dividing up the territory, devote themselves to the sale of numerous products, not least grain for the pigeons’. The association therefore urgently requests a meeting ‘to be able to stimulate those responsible to provide themselves with the means of resolving this serious problem’.