After 33 years of activity, a historic Vicenza merchant closes the shop for fear. Attacked by a harassing without expulsion, now inapplicable
When Margherita pizza Parolin Almost 34 years ago he opened the house of home products, his perfumed kingdom of linen and beeswax, in Corso Fogazzaro, full center of Vicenza, did not imagine that one day he should have lowered the shutters “for fear”.
Words that he literally printed on a sign posted in his shop: “Closed out of fear”. And immediately below: «Not for holidays. Not by choice. But because working like this has become impossible ». Behind, in the twilight, the old wooden shelves with the towels with fringes and porcelain decorated, keep the silent elegance of a time that is gone. The clean, tidy, bourgeois city has left room for degradation and annoying and inexheated immigrants. Contacted by TruthMargherita lets herself go to a long outburst: “Now there are these skids and we merchants are under check,” he says before announced: “I will not raise the shutter again until that man is out of Italy”. It is the most common thought among the merchants of the center. Nobody, however, had yet had the courage to raise the veil.
The man of the cartel is one of the many who populate the historic center: a foreign homeless. One who bivouac, screams, tears, scares customers. One who, in the last two months, has tried to take something away from the shop, who tried to damage the showcase. And who tried to attack her. “Twice,” says Margherita. Last Thursday, after yet another report (two complaints, one for private violence and another for stalking within twenty days), a Daspo Willy had been issued (an administrative measure that prohibits access and parking in certain places, designed to counter episodes of violence, fights, aggressions and dangerous behaviors) and, immediately after, a decree of expulsion.
The foreigner was to be accompanied to the CPR of Gradisca d’Isonzo. And on Friday the city breathed a sigh of relief. The script seemed perfect: crime, under penalty, expulsion. Applause. Curtain. “But on Saturday morning it was here again,” explained Margherita. No mistakes in the procedure lined up by the police headquarters. The expulsion decree, however, has dissolved in front of a medical certificate certifying its incompatibility with the detention in a CPR. And according to a sentence of the Cassation (of 2019), moreover, the foreigner who presents certain health pathologies that require assistance cannot be removed.
For the merchants of the heart of the city like Margherita, who self -deaf “an urban furniture of the historic center” for how long it has passed us, it is a paradox. Since the foreigner has returned to gritting in front of the showcases, those who have a commercial activity has their heart again in the throat. Many luxury shops have already had, for some time, left the center. The associations of merchants repeat that degradation attracts the discomfort. And vice versa. That a closed showcase is an open door on nothing. “In 33 years of work,” Margherita sighs, “I have never seen such a situation. Never”. And he explains: “It is not a political question, that does not interest me, but there is the impression that immigration is out of control”.
Solidarity has come, of course. Customers call it, colleagues pass to find it. But the void remains. “Sometimes I feared for my safety and, while feeling protected by the local police who responded to every call”, explains the woman, “I reached the awareness that there is a short circuit in the laws. And this terrifies me ». Margherita does not scream, it does not organize processions. He has decided that protesting means giving up his work and collections. “A composed, polite, but decisive action,” defined the protest the president of Confcommercio Vicenza Nicola Small. Who added: “It is not the first time that it happens and it is not an isolated case, but I hope it is the last and that Margherita’s denunciation can move something”.
Smallfrom his observatory, has already recorded other reports. “In another area of the center,” he recalls, “there was a very similar story. Reports and expulsion. But the frustration was strong when the subject returned in a few hours to the same point from which he had been officially removed ». A sort of swivel door of illegality. His conclusion: “The police intervene immediately, the institutions respond, but in the end something jams”. So much so that six days ago, when the Quaestor issued the measure, the local press had also published with triumph tones that “the nightmare” was “finished” and that Margherita “could return to live”. But no. When he saw the commuter of the CPR again in front of the front door must have really been a bad blow for her.
In short, a déjà vu vu. “I don’t give up,” he says now Margherita Parolinhowever determined to “do not remain hostage of the escapades of justice”. He decided to stop and wait for the law to start working again. Until then his maison will remain closed. “Not for holidays, but out of fear.”
