Binge drinking spreads to Italy

Under the influence of pub crawls

Italians may be taking their cue from the organized pub crawls which have becoming increasingly popular in Rome. Each night more than half a dozen crisscross the capital, shepherding backpackers from one drinking hole to another.

"Welcome to Thirsty Thursday!" organizer Dimitri Tzonev told a 60-strong group of international 20-somethings at the start of a recent pub crawl. "This is what we do for a living, every single night of the year. Pace yourselves, guys, and hopefully everyone will make it through to the end."

For €20 (about $29), the pub crawlers are taken to The Highlander, a Scottish-themed pub where for an hour and a half they can drink as much as they like.

After that they have to buy their own drinks, but the ticket includes a 30 percent discount at subsequent bars and free entry to a nightclub.

The pub crawl – motto, "I Came, I Saw, I Crawled" – originally attracted only foreigners, but now Italians are beginning to join in and make up 5 to 10 percent of the nightly drinking expeditions.

"The Italians are drinking more because of the foreign influence," says Mr. Tzonev, a Bulgarian who has been leading pub crawls in Rome for five years. "They see the British and the Australians drinking and having fun and they want to join in."

Efforts to stop binge drinking

But as British-style binge drinking takes hold, Italy is taking steps to tackle the problem. There is a campaign by lobby groups – so far unsuccessful – to raise the legal drinking age from 16 to 18. Milan recently introduced an emergency law under which it will impose a €900 fine on the parents of underage drinkers. The first of its kind in Italy, the measure was designed to tackle an "emergency" in binge drinking, says the city's mayor, Letizia Moratti.

Rome introduced its own measures last month, making it illegal to drink in the street after 9 p.m. Anyone found swigging from a bottle of beer or spirits is subject to an on-the-spot fine of €50 (about $73).

The effects on the streets of the capital were dramatic and immediate. Normally the piazzas in Rome's nightlife hot spots are packed with youngsters sitting around fountains and on marble steps working their way through bottles of beer, wine, or liquor. But since the ban, with large numbers of police on hand to enforce the new rule, the drinking has disappeared.

As a bilingual teenager whose parents are British but who has spent his whole life in Italy, 18-year-old James Foster is uniquely placed to understand the gradual merger of drinking cultures. "I know kids who say 'I want to get slaughtered tonight.' They go out and order the strongest thing they can find, like absinthe, which let's face it is disgusting," says Mr. Foster, while sipping a beer in a city center bar.

"Being drunk is not as shameful or embarrassing as it used to be. In fact it's cool – it's almost got to the point where if you aren't drunk, you're a nobody. Italians are looking to the US and Britain, where it's the accepted thing."

He agrees that parental control is breaking down in many Italian families. "When I was 13 I had to be home at midnight. Now I see 13-year-olds who stroll home at 6 a.m. It's a very recent change but it's going to become a huge problem."

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