There’s more than one thing in this world that can be crooked. One part of Italy doesn’t want anything to do with sales of ‘trashy’ items like the Leaning Tower of Pisa as penises, or the oh-so-popular ‘David's' revealed genitalia. Better hope you own one of the infamous aprons: Pisa’s mayor is placing a ban on souvenirs and merch featuring those 'dirty' goods--stores or vendors facing a new $700 fine.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most popular tourist destinations across the globe – and definitely in Italy. Upward of a million visit the famous tourist spot. And many of those buy multiple ‘treasures’ to carry home to friends. Pisa’s mayor wants to ban the sale of erotic-themed trinkets and merchandise that tout the Italian region’s ‘hot spots’. That ban includes souvenirs featuring a naked 'David' on stuff like aprons.
The most popular erotic-themed souvenirs tend to – not surprisingly, feature the Leaning Tower itself and Michelangelo’s "David", which appears on many an apron carried home from abroad. Now, Pisa wants to crack down on store vendors caught selling erotic souvenirs. Souvenirs like underwear -- with the famous tower posed as a penis -- and aprons highlighting a naked David's genitalia, are now deemed dangerous goods, at least for Italian stores that try to sell the popular merchandise now banned.
It seems Pisa’s about to create a black market for cooking aprons and undergarments. Stores or vendors are now facing fines of up to $700 dollars for violating the new city ban.
According to Pisa’s Mayor Marco Filippeschi, those Italian souvenirs are "trashy" and "not the image of the [Pisa] city we want to cultivate," he claims. "This material is offensive to public decorum and should be banned from souvenir stalls — people with young families should not have to see these shocking items."
This one’s the real ‘shocker’: The Catholic Church, with a cathedral located near the Leaning Tower of Pisa, is also reportedly appalled by those trashy souvenirs and merch. Yes, the Catholic Church supports Mayor Filippeschi’s request for Pisa and surrounding Italian cities like Siena, Florence and San Gimignano to band together in ridding the region of that desecration.
Either the Catholic Church supports the mayor – or the mayor supports the Catholic Church.
Pisa’s mayor may want to remember one thing about those “people with young families [who] should not have to see...shocking items”: Those 'young people' aren’t the ones buying, Mr Filippeschi -- it's the older ones, toting them around.
Perhaps the mayor will be reconsidering after sales for sourvenir merchandise sold to tourists takes a nose-dive and plummets. After all, not everyone drinks.
Interestingly, one of the biggest sellers in Florence and surrounding locales like Pisa – for many a year – has remained those shot glasses emblazoned with each of those city’s names. Not wine glasses, shot glasses. But apparently doing shots isn’t considered ‘trashy’.
Maybe the Italian region, or Catholic Church, is dubbing those shot glasses ‘liqueur glasses’ – for sipping pleasure of alcoholic beverages, rather than 'shooting' pleasure of college kids. Or, perhaps someone’s got a fat contract with a certain shot glass manufacturer.