Bars full of revelers spilling out into congested streets. Drinks packed with drunk tourists and students. Ear-splitting volumes in once-quiet residential neighborhoods long after midnight.
When Milan authorities launched plans years ago to promote the city as a buzzing destination, capitalizing on its reputation as Italy’s fashion and design capital, the resulting noise and raucous crowd may not have been exactly what they had in mind.
Now, after years of complaints and a series of lawsuits, the city has passed an ordinance strictly limiting the sale of takeout food and drinks after midnight — and not much later on weekends — in “movida” areas, a Spanish term for Italians . adopted to describe outdoor nightlife. It will go into effect next week and will be in effect until November 11.
Outdoor seating for restaurants and bars will also end at 12:30am. on weekdays and an hour later on weekends, so those who want more fun should do so indoors.
Businesses that have benefited from Milan’s success in promoting it as a phenomenal city are grumbling.
A trade association complained that the decree was so strict that Italians would no longer be able to take a late-night stroll with an ice cream in hand.
Marco Granelli, the Milan councilor in charge of public safety, said those fears were overblown. Eating gelato on the fly wouldn’t be a problem, he said.
The ordinance, he said, was aimed at addressing “behavior that affects residential neighborhoods” and takeout alcoholic beverages, which are seen as the main reason late-night revelers are delayed on some streets and squares. “It’s clear that ice cream, pizza or brioche don’t create crowding,” he said.
Marco Barbieri, secretary general of the Milan branch of the Italian retailer association Confcommercio, said his group would fight the decree, which he estimated would affect around 30% of the city’s 10,000 restaurants and bars. The new rules, he said, would penalize retailers for their customers’ bad behavior.
But residents have been complaining about Milan’s nightlife for some time.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Gabriella Valassina of the Navigli Commission, one of several citizens’ groups formed to deal with the growing number of people – and decibel levels – in Milan’s historic neighborhoods.
He outlined a list of complaints: noise pollution (peaks of 87 decibels, well above the permitted limit of 55, according to municipal boundaries) Streets so full of revelers it’s hard to walk or even get to your front door. an exodus of weary locals that changes the character of quaint neighborhoods.
Under the new rules, the city has allocated 170,000 euros, more than $180,000, to help bar owners hire private security services to prevent revelers from roaming the streets outside their establishments. And he is working with police unions to amend contracts to allow more officers to work night shifts to enforce the new rules.
The city may have been motivated to act more forcefully after his decisions local and national courts in Italy they sided with residents who sued the city authorities for not easing the nighttime chaos.
Elena Montafia, a representative of Milano Degrado, a neighborhood association, is one of 34 residents of the Porta Venezia neighborhood who sued the municipal government, seeking damages on the grounds that inaction on their complaints had put their health at risk.
“Living in Milan has become very difficult,” she said, adding that it was only after a decade of pleading with indifferent local administrators that she and other residents decided to go the legal route.
But she and others doubted the new ordinance would change much and that enforcement would be a problem.
“When you have so many people around you, there is no law that will make them go home. it’s impossible,” especially since the crowds usually far outnumber the police, said Fabrizio Ferretti, manager of Funky, a bar in Navigli, one of the affected neighborhoods. He acknowledged that he was persona non grata with the owners of the apartments above his bar.
The predicament Milan finds itself in today comes after years of efforts by leaders to broaden the city’s image from Italy’s financial and industrial capital to a more service-oriented, tourist-friendly one.
A series of municipal governments also encouraged the development of the city’s less central neighborhoods, said Alessandro Balducci, who teaches planning and urban policies at the Politecnico di Milano.
One of the inspirations was the Fuorisalone, the extensive network of events associated with Milan Design Week, the biggest annual global event in the world of design, which “breathed new life into neighborhoods that were in the shadows,” he said. “Even for the Milanese, it was a rediscovery of their city.”
There has also been an increase in the number of universities in the city—eight now—as well as design and fashion programs run by private institutions. Milan’s universities are also increasingly offering courses in English to broaden their international reach.
Today, students have replaced many of the workers who once worked in now-shuttered factories — for cars, chemicals and heavy machinery — that had made Milan an industrial powerhouse, Mr. Balducci said.
The University of Milano-BicoccaFor example, it opened about 25 years ago on the site of an abandoned Pirelli factory.
That increase in students is clearly evident in terms of how the nightlife has evolved, he said.
In addition, he added, after the coronavirus pandemic, bars and restaurants replaced stores in many neighborhoods, accelerating the changing faces of those areas.
Last year, some 8.5 million visitors came to Milan — not counting those who didn’t stay overnight, according to YesMilano, the city’s tourism website. That was far more than the 3.2 million visitors who slept in Milan in 2004 and the five million who slept in 2016, according to Istat, the national statistics agency.
The Navigli neighborhood – a former working-class area built around two of Milan’s most picturesque remaining canals – has experienced some of the most profound transformations in the city, evolving from a charmingly run-down district criss-crossed by picturesque bridges to a trendy district filled with restaurants and bar.
Stores that served residents closed, in part because rising rents and general chaos forced many out, including artists and craftsmen, residents say.
“The soul of the neighborhood is very different now,” said Ms. Valasina, of the Navigli Commission. “City administrations favored the idea of gentrification, believing it to be a positive goal. Instead, they changed the DNA of the neighborhood.”
On a recent evening, crowds of tourists, students and locals strolled along a canal, passing signs offering takeout beer, wine or cocktails. The bars filled quickly, and the breakout crowds moved onto the adjacent street, forcing passers-by to slalom through the crowds.
Some young revelers said they had doubts about the effectiveness of the new law.
“Young people will do what they do anyway. they will find different ways to overcome it,” said Albassa Wane, 24, who is from Dakar, Senegal and has been an intern at a fashion company who has lived in Milan for five years.