\n<\/p>\n
Packed bars with carousing revelers spilling onto clogged streets. Takeaway booze swigged by drunken tourists and students. Earsplitting volumes in once quiet residential neighborhoods long after midnight.<\/p>\n
When Milan\u2019s authorities embarked years ago on plans to promote the city as a buzzy destination by building on its reputation as Italy\u2019s hip fashion and design capital, the resulting noise and rowdy overcrowding were perhaps not quite what they had in mind.<\/p>\n
Now, after years of complaints and a series of lawsuits, the city has passed an ordinance to strictly limit the sale of takeaway food and beverages after midnight \u2014 and not much later on weekends \u2014 in \u201cmovida\u201d areas, a Spanish term that Italians have adopted to describe outdoor nightlife. It will go into effect next week and be in force until Nov. 11.<\/p>\n
Outdoor seating for restaurants and bars will also end at 12:30 a.m. on weekdays, and an hour later on weekends, so that people who want to party longer will have to do so indoors. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The businesses that have profited from Milan\u2019s success in promoting itself as a happening city are grumbling.<\/p>\n
One trade association complained that the ordinance was so strict that Italians would no longer be able to take a late-night stroll with a gelato in hand.<\/p>\n
Marco Granelli, the Milan council member who is responsible for public security, said those fears were overblown. Eating gelato on the fly would not be a problem, he said.<\/p>\n
The ordinance, he said, was aimed at dealing with \u201cbehavior that impacts on residential neighborhoods\u201d and with takeaway alcoholic drinks, which are seen as the main reason late-night revelers linger on certain streets and squares. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that ice cream, pizza or brioches don\u2019t create overcrowding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Marco Barbieri, secretary general for the Milan branch of the Italian retailers\u2019 association Confcommercio, said his group would fight the ordinance, which he estimated would affect about 30 percent of the city\u2019s 10,000 restaurants and bars. The new rules, he said, would penalize retailers for the bad behavior of their customers.<\/p>\n
But residents have been complaining about Milan nightlife for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a nightmare,\u201d said Gabriella Valassina of the Navigli Committee, one of several citizen\u2019s groups formed to address the increasing numbers of people \u2014 and decibel levels \u2014 in Milan\u2019s historic neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
She outlined a list of complaints: noise pollution (peaks of 87 decibels, well over the allowed 55, according to municipal limits<\/a>); streets so packed with revelers that it is hard to walk or even reach one\u2019s front door; an exodus of fed-up locals that is changing the character of picturesque neighborhoods.<\/p>\n With the new rules, the city has allocated 170,000 euros, a little over $180,000, to help bar owners hire private security services to stop revelers from loitering on the streets outside their establishments. And it is working with police unions to modify contracts to allow more officers to work night shifts to enforce the new rules.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The city may have been motivated to act more forcefully after decisions by local<\/a> and national courts<\/a> in Italy have sided with residents who sued city administrations for not reining in nighttime chaos.<\/p>\n Elena Montafia, a spokeswoman for the Milano Degrado, a neighborhood association, is one of 34 residents of the Porta Venezia neighborhood suing the municipal government and asking for damages on the grounds that inaction to their complaints had put their health at risk.<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in Milan has become really difficult,\u201d she said, adding that it was only after a decade of pleading with unresponsive local administrators that she and the other residents had decided to go down the legal route.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, she and others doubted that the new ordinance would change much, and that enforcement would be a problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhen you have so many people around, there isn\u2019t a law that is going to make them go home; it\u2019s impossible,\u201d especially because the crowds normally far outnumber police officers, said Fabrizio Ferretti, the manager of Funky, a bar in Navigli, one of the affected neighborhoods. He acknowledged he was persona non grata with the owners of the apartments above his bar.<\/p>\n The predicament that Milan finds itself in today comes after years of efforts by leaders to broaden the city\u2019s image from Italy\u2019s financial and industrial capital to a more service-oriented, tourist-friendly one.<\/p>\n A succession of municipal governments has also encouraged the development of the city\u2019s less central neighborhoods, said Alessandro Balducci, who teaches planning and urban policies at the Politecnico di Milano.<\/p>\n One of the inspirations was the Fuorisalone, the sprawling network of events related to Milan Design Week, the design world\u2019s largest annual global event, that \u201cgave new life to neighborhoods that were in the shadows,\u201d he said. \u201cEven for the Milanese, it was a rediscovery of their city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There had been an increase, too, in the number of universities in the city \u2014 eight now \u2014 as well as design and fashion programs run by private institutes. Milanese universities are also increasingly offering courses in English to broaden their international appeal.<\/p>\n Today, students have replaced many of the laborers who once worked in now-closed factories \u2014 for automobiles, chemicals and heavy machinery \u2014 that had made Milan an industrial powerhouse, Mr. Balducci said.<\/p>\n