(Jamma) A mini-casino overlooking the Apostolic Palace, close to the Vatican Walls and Porta Santa Rosa. One thousand two hundred square meters 'consecrated' to gaming: dozens of slot machines turned on from 10 in the morning to midnight, 7 days a week. This is the reason for the dispute between the inhabitants of the Roman district and Sisal. In order to prevent the opening of the hall, some inhabitants have sent the municipal police a request for immediate checks.
Central points: the risks to static nature and the violation of resolution 36/2006 on the protection of the historic city, which prohibits the issuing of licenses for gaming halls in buildings of 'nineteenth-twentieth century expansion'. The resolution in question is well known to operators in the amusement machine sector. Approved by the City Council of Rome in 2006, its objective is "the broadest protection of the urban environment" and "reduced environmental impacts in the existing traditional craft and commercial fabric, recognizing the latter's historical, socio-economic and cultural value." From this point of view, some activities are declared incompatible with the need to protect environmental and urban values and, therefore, the effects of the relative communications or declarations of the start of activity must be inhibited and applications for authorization or clearance concerning:
a) wholesale trade with or without goods storage and dedicated showrooms
on display and for sale except in the streets of the S. Angelo district as per Annex A;
b) depots and warehouses not functionally connected with retail establishments
existing in the area;
c) arcades for video games, billiards and other lawful games;
d) body shops and garages for car repairs;
e) consumer cooperatives and internal outlets carrying out facing sales activities
the street;
f) sex shops;
g) hard and soft discounts;
h) administration activities in private clubs at street level (except clubs
and sports centres).
From 2006 to today, the administrative judge has dealt on various occasions with appeals requesting the annulment of decisions of the Municipality of Rome which deny authorization to open public establishments included in the 2006 resolution. negative outcome as for the administrative judges "the provisions were evidently not given for the purpose of introducing prohibitions based on the imposition of predefined numerical limits calculated on the volume of sales or on market shares, but only for the express purpose of regulating the protection and redevelopment of commercial and craft activities within the perimeter of the historic city, to preserve the integrity of the relative historical and cultural structure of the sector, it must be concluded that they are not at all in conflict with the principles and provisions of the aforementioned law 248/2006.
In this regard it has been affirmed by shared jurisprudence that the same constitutional and Community principles on the subject of freedom of economic initiative and the protection of competition do not exclude that the need to protect social values of an equally primary rank may suggest conditioning and temperaments to the unfolding of rights individuals, so that the restrictive measures in question, without imposing quantitative and qualitative limitations incompatible with national legislation, pursue the concurrent aim of protecting the consumer by guaranteeing the permanence, in the protected territorial areas, of a varied offer of goods and services that is not impoverished of traditional activities otherwise at risk of extinction (State Council, section V, 10 May 2010, n. 2758)".
