Italy: Heat Wave & Counterfeit Fashion

By Larry Habegger | Permalink | No Comments | June 28th, 2005 | Trackback

Northern Italy is in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures hitting the mid 90s and raising fears of a replay of the heat wave in 2003 that caused nearly 8,000 deaths. Water supplies are at half of their normal levels because of a lack of rain. Turning up the heat in a different way, police in Ventimiglia on the Italian Riviera fined a Danish tourist 10,000 euros for buying counterfeit sunglasses from a street vendor. Her fine was immediately reduced by two-thirds provided she pay within two months, but levying such an enormous fine for a 10 euro pair of sunglasses seems to be cracking down on the wrong customer. No tourist who has ever left home believes she is buying the real thing from a street vendor at such a price, and if authorities want to stamp out fashion counterfeiting, shouldn’t they go after the vendors rather than the tourists?

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