Outside Police Sent to Riva Stir Confusion Over Fines and Local Customs

Some time ago, two municipal police officers came to Riva to strengthen the scant workforce during the summer months, sent from some city, “from Terni, from Rieti or from Trento.” The author of the open letter to “Dear fixed, seasonal, and acting municipal police officers,” also sent for information to the “sior sindaco” and the editorial staff, clearly observed these two outsiders in uniform at work.

“At the beach, they were curious about who and where, to complain to everyone: ‘not there with the balòm’… ‘bicycle on the rack’… ‘I take off the hat from the plant’… they even told a girl to remove the umbrella from the bench because it was ‘misappropriation of public property’…

Two who were playing cards checked the bridges and were justly dismissing those they suspected. I think they might have overdone it a bit, even if afterwards they all kept an eye on a single dress with a stripe on the right side.” Our fellow townsman, when it was time to go home, started the scooter, “took out the helmet from the trunk, and looked at the receipt stuck on the handlebar.”

Initially, he was pleased with the kindness, thinking it was a piece of paper that had fallen from his pocket and was carefully retrieved by some passerby. When he was about to dispose of it as something profoundly useless, he realized it was the work of the two aforementioned officers.

“It says that my motorbike ‘obstructed the maneuvering of parked vehicles and was not forcibly removed due to the lack of necessary means.’ Now I wonder, as a local, was it really necessary for people to come from outside to issue fines?

He reached this point, recalling the Barilota that was racing after him in the canal of the Roca, where we change clothes to swim or the Biondo who, when he played in the Benacense, would get excited when he tripped, or Marco, who with the mouths of his friends (who are also ours) had calmed down.” Much better, concludes our local, to leave aside these summer purchases for their respective villages and manage with our own, which are sometimes found throughout the year on the streets, and which in months and years have built a certain kind of relationship, that above all, “castronae” of those sizes, until proved otherwise, have gained enough common sense to avoid them.