Pro-mussolini beach club told to remove fascist slogans

THE owner of an Italian beach club which exalts the achievements of Benito Mussolini was ordered to remove all references to fascism yesterday, in a scandal that reached all the way to parliament in Rome.

Questions were asked as to why the authorities had not known about – or had turned a blind eye to – the resort, which was plastered with fascist slogans and references to “gas chambers”.

“It’s shocking that there was such tolerance for what was going on along a beachfront that is so popular and wellknown. I’m wondering about the person who granted the concession to this gentleman,” said Diego Collovini, from a national organisation representing the partisans who fought fascist forces during the Second World War.

The Punta Canna resort was hardly small or tucked away, boasting capacity for 650 sun worshippers on a broad stretch of beach in Chioggia, near Venice, in Italy’s north-east.

Chioggia is known as “the little Venice” for its narrow canals, old merchants’ houses and overall similarity to “La Serenissima”.

The prefect of Venice ordered the resort’s owner, Gianni Scarpa, to carry out “the immediate removal of any reference to fascism in notices, signs or any other written form”.

Mr Scarpa, 64, an unabashed fascist, was also ordered “to abstain from disseminating messages critical of democracy”.

Police in Venice said they were officially investigating Mr Scarpa and his beach club, after raiding the premises on Sunday. They took photographs and video footage of the many offensive notices posted around the place.

He could be charged with being an apologist for fascism and for disseminating hatred and racial discrimination.

“The regime rules here, democracy disgusts me, and if you don’t like it, I don’t give a toss,” one sign said. Another read: “Toilets for clients only. Otherwise, you’ll get a cosh in the teeth.”

The existence of the beach club – revealed at the weekend by national newspaper La Repubblica – prompted a debate about Italy’s sometimes ambivalent attitude towards its fascist past.

“This is a scandal which we will ask the government to discuss in parliament,” said Emanuele Fiano, an MP from the centre-left Democratic Party.