The city of Venice issued yet another ban on kayaking in the city canals on June 3rd, 2019, and Venice Kayak has taken the city administration to court yet again.
This is becoming a never ending story.
The short version
The current status is that we can kayak in almost all the minor canals in the city but not paddling in or crossing the Grand Canal and some other more busy (but for us less important) canals.
We can paddle in these canals all day, without limitations.
In practice it means that we can paddle in all of the sestieri Castello and Cannaregio.
Venice Kayak is therefore operating almost as before, except we can go in the Grand Canal.
The detailed version
The city administrations decision 390/2019 of June 3rd contains two parts.
The first is a total ban on kayaking in the Grand Canal and any other canal where public transport is operating, such as the Canale Cannaregio and the Canale Scomenzera. This part is almost certainly instigated by ACTV, the public transport company, which claims that they’ve had problems with kayaks and SUPs getting in the way of the vaporetti. While this might very well be true, as there are other kayak and SUP operators in the city, they haven’t provided any concrete proof of anything. It’s just their word.
The second part limits paddling in a series of named city canals to before 7am and after 5pm, thus basically ruling out paddling in the city during the day. Apparently so, at least.
The relevant disputed words are (translated by VK): “and the remaining canals of the limited traffic area in the lagoon.”
Any normal reading of these words by anybody who knows Venice well, would be that we cannot paddle anywhere within the jurisdiction of the Comune di Venezia, as ‘canal’ would normally be taken to mean generally a waterway.
However, once in court, the city’s lawyers pulled out an alternative interpretation, which we have in writing, that it only refers to the waterways that actually have the word ‘canal’ in their name.
The city administration has also provided us with official maps indicating one (1) such canal in Venice, one (1) in Murano and one (1) in Burano, where we’re therefore not allowed to go between 7am and 5pm. The canal in Burano is closed to normal traffic as there’s a bridge at street level impeding traffic.
In all the other canals, which have the word ‘rio’ in their name instead of ‘canale’, we can go without limitations.
This does make one think that the city didn’t expect us to have the resources to do a second legal recourse, and when we did it anyway, they decided that it was more important saving the first part of the decision than the second, which they have then hollowed out to appease us.
The municipal administration of Venice made an almost total ban on kayaks in the city canals on August 1st, 2018. Venice Kayak took the city to court and on March 20th, 2019, the TAR (tribunale amministrativo regionale – the regional administrative tribunal) sentenced in our favour.
The TAR held a preliminary hearing of the case on July 3rd, because Venice Kayak had requested a temporary suspension of the ban until the actual hearing is scheduled. Unfortunately, the tribunal has not suspended the city decision so for not the ban on kayaks in the city canals stand.
However, it also doesn’t.
Canali and rii
The first part of the ban included a total ban on kayaking on the Grand Canal, the Canale Cannaregio (where we never to) and on any other canals where public transport is running.
The wording of the second part of the ban is as follows, in Italian (translation below), with a list of boat types left out:
Nei rii dei Greci – San Lorenzo, Santa Giustina, Sant’Antonin – Pietà, di Noale – Canale delle Misericordia, Novo-di Ca’ Foscari, dei Santi Apostoli-Gesuiti e nei restanti canali della Z.t.l. lagunare è vietata la navigazione dei natanti denominati … , kayak, … , dal lunedì al venerdì dalle 07.00 alle ore 17.00, e al sabato dalle ore 7.00 alle ore 15.00, festivi esclusi. E’ comunque escluso l’attraversamento del Canal Grande.
Comune di Venezia, ordinanza 390/2019
Our translation in English:
In the rii dei Greci – San Lorenzo, Santa Giustina, Sant’Antonin – Pietà, di Noale – Canale delle Misericordia, Novo-di Ca’ Foscari, dei Santi Apostoli-Gesuiti and in the remaining canals of the limited traffic area of the lagoon, all navigation is forbidden for boats called … , kayak, … , from Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 17:00, and on Satuday from 7:00 to 15:00, holidays excluded. It is in any case excluded crossing the Grand Canal.
For any normal person here in Venice the words “the remaining canals of the limited traffic area of the lagoon” would mean all the waterways of the city of Venice, and of the Lido, the Giudecca, Murano and Burano.
For the city’s lawyers it is not so.
In Venice most canals are denominated rio (plural: rii), like Rio de la Tana, or Rio di San Felice. A few are, however, denominated canale (plural: canali) The reason is historic. The rii were the smaller city canals, and the canali were either larger waterways (like the Grand Canal or Canale Cannaregio) or because centuries ago they were considered canals in the lagoon, not in the city (like Canale di San Pietro).
So what is banned?
For the lawyers of the city administration the words “the remaining canals of the limited traffic area of the lagoon” refers exclusively to the urban canals denominated canale, and not the rii.
They have repeated this numerous times in a brief to the tribunal, and the tribunal has based its decision not to suspend the ban on this reading, which means that the ban only affects a few canals, as shown on the two maps below supplied by the city lawyers to the tribunal.
The canals marked in black are banned at all times for kayaks, either because there are public transport routes there, or because they’re part of the Sestiere San Marco.
The canals marked in red are limited from 7:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday, and 7:00 to 15:00 on Saturdays.
In Venice city the limited canals are the ones specifically named in the ban, and just one more canal, the Canale di San Pietro, which, lo and behold, is placed just so that it prevents Venice Kayak from entering the city from our base on the Certosa island. Surely just a coincidence that the only additional canal in Venice is the one impeding our work the most.
On Murano the black canals is only a part of where public transport circulates, and the red canals is one with very low intensity traffic. It is very hard to understand why exactly that canal should somehow be more dangerous than many other areas in the city.
On Burano they have banned one canal only. It is a canal blocked by a bridge at street level and some huge posts, so motorised traffic physically cannot pass. Yet, somehow, magically, this canal is much more dangerous for kayaks than the few other canals on Burano where motorboats can and do pass.
The mind boggles at the sheer logic and rational thinking behind this.
Compared to last year?
The wording in the June 2019 ban is almost identical to the wording in the August 2018 ban.
The words “the remaining canals of the limited traffic area of the lagoon” are the same in the two texts.
Last year, in several briefs to the tribunal and during the actual hearings, the lawyers of the city didn’t bring out this different reading of the words of the decision of the city administration.
Yet the words are the same.
Somehow in the process, the city’s lawyers have decided that the same words have a very different and unusual meaning.
What’s next?
Venice Kayak has appealed the rejection of the suspension of the ban to the consiglio di stato in Rome. We don’t know when this appeal will be heard.
There will at some point be an udienza di merito, that is, the definitive hearing after which the TAR will in due course publish a sentence. We do not know when that will be.
If you can, please help us cover the expenses for the court case.
Venice Kayak has to modify the range of tours on offer, due to the newest ban in kayaks in Venice. We can no longer do all the tours on all the days.
The municipal administration in Venice has issued yet another kayak ban in the city. Like the last time, they have done so without any kind of warning, literally from one day to the next.
While such procedures might be legally admissible, they are nonetheless morally reprehensible, leaving stakeholders with no time to prepare and adjust.
The hostility is obvious, and the city administration no doubt want to bleed us dry, knowing that we’re a small company with limited resources.
With the new rules, in force from Tuesday, June 4th, we can only paddle in Venice after 5pm on weekdays, after 3pm on Saturdays, and all of Sundays and holidays. We are forbidden 100% on the Grand Canal and a few other of the major canals in the city.
These rules are even more draconian than the rules they issued in a similar manner last year, for which we took them to court and won.
The consequences to our offer of tours in Venice city is this:
On week days (Mon-Fri) we can only do late afternoon tours from 3.30pm to 7pm;
On Saturdays we can do the normal afternoon tour from 2pm to 6pm;
On Sundays and holidays, we can do morning, full day and afternoon tours.
These tours can all be booked from our tour calendar.
Evening tours are still available, but it is no longer possible to go on the Grand Canal, so they’re limited to the smaller canals of Cannaregio and Castello.
The municipal administration in Venice has issued yet another kayak ban in the city.
Their previous attempt failed disastrously in court. The tribunal decided that they had failed to prove that a kayak is more dangerous than many other vessels the city happily allows in the canals.
This time their reasons are these:
kayaks [and others] … are likely to cause damage to the decorous image of the historic city which, disregarding the uniqueness of its structure, is comparable to any other art city in Europe.
Comune di Venezia, Ordinanza 390/2019
Given what has just happened, it can hardly be more absurd.
Danger?
The danger kayaks pose to the image of the city of Venice should maybe be seen in relation to yesterday’s events.
The video shows the MSC Opera crashing into the pier in Venice on June 2nd, 2019 (yesterday).
Maybe the city should have cared a little more about the timing of their harassment of small environmentally friendly businesses.
This has only just happened today, so we do not yet know what the full impact will be on our business, but it will be devastating. Tours in Venice city is about 90% of our business.
