Counter-petition

Since our friendly neighbourhood petition has had such immediate results with the local police, we thought we had better get a counter-petition going, so that those who frequent the borgo could lend their support to all the bars and restaurants here. Mio marito's article about running a restaurant in the borgo also was published in the local paper and suddenly he has become quite famous, locally! Since he can express himself quite well, the other bars and restaurant owners are happy that he has undertaken the role of spokesperson. He is also practised in the art of diplomacy and so, less likely to blow his top when he comes across challenging situations, in the form of local authorities etc ... (The other restaurateurs might not manage to keep their volcanic temperaments in check). One bar-owner in particular, however, maintains that he is wholly disinterested in the entire affair. He thinks the petition is all about making money (this comes from someone whose family got rich by exploiting all sorts of channels - including the refinery - in recent decades, without having to put much actual hard graft into the money earning). This character argues with the 'borgo consortium' every time the restaurant owners try to work together. It's a pity, because if we could all work together, maybe we would have a chance of improving the situation here. Basically, if we had some more regulations in force, both neighbours and bar-owners would be happier. We would all like the streets to be cleaned and the skips to be emptied on a Sunday morning, for example. Imagine: the town council says it does not have enough money to pay street cleaners on a Sunday, the day after the Saturday night chaos. So by Sunday night, skips are stinking and overflowing. Our waiters do their best at 4am on a Sunday morning, and then, at 7am my suocero comes to sweep up the cigarette butts in front of the locale ... but not all of the bars put in the effort. Also, as the neighbour whoe wrote the newspaper article noted, our music is inside - and it is a DJ, not live music. There is one bar in particular whose music is slap bang in the middle of a piazza, starts at around 1am and goes on until 3am and can probably be heard within a 10km radius ... We can hear it clear as a stadium speaker in our house ...