In what the Italian media has referred to as the “battle of the cones”, Milanese ice-cream lovers have forced the local council to back down after it banned the consumption of ice cream on the street after midnight. The local council banned the eating of ice creams after midnight in four parts of the city in an attempt to reduce noise levels. The zones cited were Corso Como, Arco della Pace, Navigli and Ticinese. Noisy ice cream eaters were blamed for keeping locals awake in the early hours of the morning. The council said people could only eat ice cream inside ice-cream parlours or risk incurring a fine. However, the ban got a frosty reception from locals, leading to protests from ice-cream sellers and consumers. A flashmob assembled in front of a famous ice-cream parlour in Ticines. Hundred of people took part in the Occupy Gelato initiative, staging a sit-in in front of the Grom ice-cream parlour at Porta Ticinese to protest against the ice-cream prohibition law. After a week of protests, the mayor of Milan, Giuliano Pisapia, was licked. He was forced to issue a statement admitting the council had made a mistake, saying: “[People] can eat ice cream day and night anywhere they like. There was perhaps a mistake in the interpretation of the rules, or perhaps an error in the way things were written.” The mayor confessed: “I love ice cream like crazy, both day and night.”
