In Italy, the Non Kebab Wars

For decades the US -British Media, uses every opportunity to "slant" a story to ridicule Italy, whereas I don't see that prejudice in reverse.

Here an ongoing attempt to keep "fast food" and non traditional foods out of "historical" areas of Italian Cities, and to deal with ethnic food trucks, or push carts, who have sanitation problems and are unfair competition to Bistros, is blown into an Anti Immigrant Protest.

Would we in the US permit Taco Trucks/Push Carts on the Gettysburg Battlefield, or Washington Mall? If so, we are uncivilized "hicks".

In Italy, Sign of Defiance in a Kebab and a Coke

New York Times; By Elisabetta Povoledo; April 24, 2009

MILAN - ....It is likely that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Lombardy residents are running afoul of a regional law passed this week that regulates how fast-food restaurants and takeout shops may sell the food they produce.

The law, which also applies to ice cream parlors and pizza stands, bans establishments without restaurant or bar licenses from selling anything other than what they themselves produce on site, including drinks. Customers consuming outside the premises cannot sit down or use plastic utensils...

But what brought dozens of people to a so-called protest lunch outside a kebab shop on Thursday was concern that the law was aimed at fast-food restaurants run by immigrants. The measure was approved Tuesday by the center-right majority,... as a means to preserve the traditional identity of Italian cities. ...

In Italy,... there are pro-kebab and anti-kebab Facebook groups fiercely competing for members. Italian fans of foreign foods can also join a group calling itself the Couscous Clan, which promotes what it calls “gastronomic trans-contamination.” It was started 15 years ago in Turin and became a Facebook group this year after the Tuscan city of Lucca banned new ethnic and fast-food restaurants from opening in its historic center.

Supporters of the law say that it finally regulates a sector that had existed in a confused legislative status for years. Rather than restrict what takeouts sell, they say, the law legalizes what had been under-the-counter behavior, while protecting bars and restaurants from unfair competition on the part of fast-food businesses. "Bars and restaurants have to follow strict sanitary codes as well as numerous other laws that takeaways didn’t, and that wasn’t fair," said Lino Stoppani, president of the Italian Federation of Bars and Catering.

Violators of the new law, which also mandates closing hours for the establishments, are supposed to be fined about $195 to $1,300....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/europe/24kebab.html?_r=1&emc=eta1