Borgo Pio is the closest neighbourhood to the Vatican, a street full of restaurants and souvenir stores.
And although their owners know that they are in one of the most privileged areas in the world, they now worry as the city council has just begun work on their streets.
The work will not be finished before the Jubilee, when more tourists are expected.
“All we had to do was to wait for the customers to arrive, to welcome the pilgrims in the best possible way,” Stefano Said, a retailer in the area.
“And instead there will be many problems because starting the works now without telling us when they will be finished is, logically, an inconvenience for all small businesses.”
The public administration has stated that the funds received were to be spent within a certain period of time, so they cannot be postponed. But for the merchants, this is yet another blow to their already delicate economy.
“We have already had two years of Covid in which we were practically closed and now we were waiting for the Jubilee, 2025, as a help from heaven,” he said.
Those affected have asked the mayor of Rome to postpone the work until after the Jubilee.
Tommaso, for example, has been with this pizzeria for many years. He says the situation is going to be a hard blow to the family economy.
“And I wonder: it was already known 25 years ago that we were going to have a Jubilee, couldn’t they have found a better time to do the works?” Tommaso asked.
The merchants have been preparing for this Jubilee for months and fear that the works will take away all of their effort.
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