+6 Finding the Off Switch
Finding the Off Switch
Urbino, Italy — This magnificent Renaissance city is known for its friendly faces and peaceful piazzas. Except on Thursday night. That’s when the quiet streets erupt with laughter, loud music and screams of university students.
Gabriele Cavalera remembers one harrowing night 20 years ago when ambulance trying to reach a sick student was blocked by crowds of partiers, most of them University of Urbino students. They then began rocking the vehicle back and forth and tried to climb into it.
Cavalera, now the communication director for the mayor, remembers thinking at the time, “Before somebody dies, let’s do something.”
Although things hadn’t been that bad since 1999, earlier this year growing noise and celebrations had hit such volume and intensity residents worried it was reaching a boiling point again. So they asked the mayor, Maurizio Gambini, to intervene.
He agreed and passed an ordinance that clubs must be closed at 2 a.m. for two months, outraging students and bar owners but delighting residents. The ordinance was dissolved in April, but the argument continues.
This fight is nothing new inside Urbino’s ancient walls. For decades there has been a struggle between students and residents. Students say they need to relax and have fun, and residents say they need their sleep. And the unique geography of the city makes a solution difficult.
Of Urbino’s 14,000 fulltime residents only about 1100 live inside walls of the historic city center, which the United Nations has declared a World Heritage City. The rest live outside in modern housing.
But the old city is the campus for most of the 14,000 students. They attend classes in the old buildings, some rent apartments there, and its bars and clubs are where they naturally go to blow off steam after a long week of classes.
In the old days, bars and clubs could stay open until 6 in the morning, Cavalera explains. The first ordinance required closure at “3 during the week and 3:30 during the weekends.”
Through the years, closing time has been continually pushed up earlier. Then, four years ago, an ordinance was passed that outlawed people from having bottles or open containers in public 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Customers could have open bottles near the doors of the establishments where they were drinking, Cavalera explains.
“This was done because a few years ago at a certain point there were students who would buy alcohol in supermarkets and just sit around, and they’ll leave bottles and glasses and rubbish everywhere,” Cavalera said.
It was no longer just a nuisance to residents; it became a safety concern when there was broken glass up and down the streets. However, the ordinance against music outside after 12 a.m. was due to complaints from neighbors trying to sleep.
“Sometimes they sing, they yell, they scream, they talk, and for the residents it can be pretty difficult,” said Cavalera.
Anna Rita Romani works for Urbino Living, a local realty agency that sells and rents out apartments to students and residents. The inhabitants close to the bar would be up until 5 a.m. due to the noise.
“There are some apartments which are very close to the bar, and some students have left their apartments because during the night it was too noisy,” Romani said. “Some students gave the key back because they couldn’t stay there.”
The students from the University of Urbino are not the only ones to blame for all the commotion, however. The town had become a hotspot for students from nearby areas as well.
“Thursday night in Urbino was so popular that people used to come from other towns and other regions,” Cavalera said. “You would get so many people downtown that was really becoming a problem.”
Alessandra Ubaldi, Urbino resident and owner of a specialty clothing store called Guado, may be one of the few who isn’t bothered by the noise at night, but she acknowledges that the students dominate the population of this small town.
“I don’t live where there are many students. I live next to the historic center, so I don’t have a direct contact to the problem,” Ubaldi said. “But, there’s a difference in numbers because there are a lot more students than there are citizens.”
Cavalera said when citizens have a complaint, it goes directly to the mayor.
“They usually sign off a petition, they send it to the mayor, and they ask for a meeting,” Cavalera said. “They promote the meeting with the mayor, and they try to explain their points of view.”
Although the ordinance was only in place for two months, people didn’t think it was enough for solving the tension between citizens and residents.
“It just started a strong discussion about the topic that needs to be continued,” Ubaldi said. “Just setting a time for clubs to close doesn’t solve the problem.”
Veronica Gentillini, a university student and coordinator of Agora Student Association, has made an effort to meet with the residents and talk out the issue. The attempt has turned into more of a struggle, she said.
“It’s not always so easy, so they try with the student council to talk to the citizens and to have the citizens meet so we can find an agreement,” Gentillini said.
“There is a generation of 20-year-olds who change almost every year and there is a generation of older people the actual citizens who remain the same.”
It’s not surprising that the two sides are at odds, not only because of the age difference but their difference in values. Ubaldi says that is the source of the fighting.
“There is a generation of 20-year-olds who change almost every year,” Ubaldi says, “and there is a generation of older people the actual citizens who remain the same.”
Gentillini blames both sides for not communicating enough.
“There’s not a physical meeting between students and citizens,” Gentillini said. “In my opinion, this ordinance was created because there was never an agreement between students and citizens.”
Cavalera disputed the idea that residents and students do not get along and insists that the situation is not as bad as it’s made out to be.
“Sometimes you find on newspapers that the students and the residents are like rivals or enemies, it’s not the case,” Cavalera argued. “It’s just a question of having different needs.”
However, Ubaldi thinks that having different needs is part of the problem, because people just start to talk in circles. She will eventually stop meeting with residents for this reason.
“Often people just tell their own stories and their own needs,” Ubaldi says. “Instead of actually trying to find a common ground they fight.”
Collaborating on a solution that makes everyone happy has not seemed to work out so far, but some ideas have been thrown around.
“We need to find the right kinds of entertainment, and I think that this is probably the most difficult of the problems where people can’t agree,” Ubaldi says.
Campogiani thinks that college kids shouldn’t act out just because they are in a different city.
“They have to be the same in their home in Urbino. Correct, educated, clean,” Campogiani says. “In Italy we say ‘Paese dei balocchi: the country in which one can do everything’, it’s not correct. Urbino is not ‘Paese dei balocchi’.”
Although there are differing opinions on long-term solutions, one thing remains clear: An ordinance like this could likely be passed again. According to Cavalera, only if something major happens, but Gentillini thinks otherwise.
Gentillini says, “Because I know the mayor, yes.”
Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Lisa Oliva, Liliana Cogliandro, Bianca Sartini and Roberto Giambona.
Video by Caitlin Piemme & Madison Schultz
