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Beating the Mafia at Their Own Game: After Years of Paying a ‘Protection’ Tax, Palermo Businesses Came Together to Fight Back

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Beating the Mafia at Their Own Game: After Years of Paying a ‘Protection’ Tax, Palermo Businesses Came Together to Fight Back 23/01/13Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post Rob Ford | Saadi Gaddafi | Australian Open | North Korea | Maple Leafs | Idle No More | Kathleen Wynne WORLDNews / World Beating the Mafia at their own game: After years of paying a ‘protection’ tax, Palermo businesses came together to fight back A DRIAN HUMPHREY S | Jan 23, 2013 11:35 PM ET More from Adrian Humphreys | @AD_Humphreys Edoardo Zaffuto, a spokesman for Addiopizzo, an organization of businesses that defy the Mafia in Palermo, a city w here the Mafia has a suffocating presence. Adrian Humphrey s f or National Post Addiopizzo has moved into a dow ntow n condominium that w as seized by the state from the local Mafia boss and turned over to the anti-Mafia group to use rent-free. A wide, shaded downtown piazza is jammed with diners savouring oddly rustic looking food as plates are hustled through large wooden doors set in the stone façade of a restaurant older than Italy itself. Despite its Old World charm, local delicacies and being owned for five generations by the same genial family, Antica Focacceria San Francesco is best known these days for its owners’ defiance of the Mafia in a city where organized crime has a suffocating presence. Here, Fabio Conticello, one of two brothers who run Antica, is reluctant to talk — not out of fear, he is largely over that — but because he is so busy. Wiping his hands on his apron, he settles one customer’s bill, directs a waiter to a table needing attention and only then pauses to talk. “It has not always been easy but we believe this is the right way. It is an important thing to do,” Mr. Conticello says in a soft voice. The Conticellos are among a growing number of businesses in Palermo and elsewhere in Italy that have publicly pledged not to pay “pizzo” — the expected “protection” money extorted by the Mafia. On the windows of his restaurant, beside the notices of awards and which credit cards are accepted, is an orange circle around an X, bisected by black letters: “Addiopizzo.” news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/23/beating-the-mafia-at-their-own-game-after-years-of-paying-a-protection-tax-palermo-businesses-came-together-to-fight… 1/9 28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post It is the logo of a grassroots anti-Mafia campaign causing a sensation here, igniting a once unimaginable crusade of community activism challenging the omnipotence of the crime cartels that have held some sovereignty over this island since before the founders of the Antica had learned to cook. Addiopizzo, which means “goodbye pizzo,” represents a bold declaration, a solemn promise and a hope for the future. Pizzo is an illicit tax imposed by the mob on businesses in a gangster’s territory and has been a constant money-maker for Cosa Nostra, the proper name of the Mafia born on the island of Sicily. The word pizzo is Sicilian dialect for a bird’s beak. The image of a bird moving from flower to flower sipping nectar from each Fabio Conticello pauses outside his busy restaurant in dow ntow n Palermo, capital of Sicily, the Adrian Humphrey s f or National Post conjured its use for the protection racket, birthplace of the Mafia. One of tw o brothers w ho run Antica Focacceria San Francesco, he stood up to the Mafia and refused to pay 'pizzo.' where shops are intimidated into paying a monthly fee to be left alone. The name — and the extortion — have spread, throughout Italy and Europe and to North America. In Canada, businesses in Montreal, Toronto, York Region, Hamilton and St. Catharines face demands to pay pizzo to the local Mafia. What is it about Palermo that paying pizzo to the Mafia is normal? Official estimates say 80% of Palermo’s businesses routinely paid pizzo and the power of the Mafia here has long meant it could not be challenged. It was in that climate that seven young friends in Palermo dreamed of starting a pub. One of them drafted a business plan, estimating expenses; alongside rent and wages, was pizzo. “It was a provocation, of course, and it got them really thinking,” says Edoardo Zaffuto, a spokesman for Addiopizzo. “What is it about Palermo that paying pizzo to the Mafia is normal? It was a problem. One day they would come, they would knock on our door. What are we going to do when — not if, when — they come,” he says of the 2004 pub planning. Related Mafia 101: Quebec corruption probe gets scholarly rundown on Mob’s ’10 Commandments’ Alleged Montreal Mafia bodyguard survives gunshot as underworld warfare continues Aggrieved that doing business here required such dark calculus, the group printed large stickers. Designed to mimic the look of traditional Sicilian obituary notices, they bore one sentence: “An entire people that pays pizzo is a people without dignity.” Residents woke on June 29, 2004, to find the stickers plastered in the city’s core. The slogan suggested the death of their dignity for accepting the system of pizzo. The insult hit harder than they imagined. Calogero Ferrara, deputy prosecutor in Palermo’s busy Antimafia directorate, remembers the day he saw the stickers along the cluttered streets near his office in the magnificently imposing courthouse. “It appeared so surprising that at the beginning, we thought it was some kind of Mafia message,” Mr. Ferrara says. Authorities quickly welcomed the defiant act. When the group were out putting up stickers on a second night, a police squad stopped news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/23/beating-the-mafia-at-their-own-game-after-years-of-paying-a-protection-tax-palermo-businesses-came-together-to-fight… 2/9 28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post them. When the officers heard what they were really doing, they were encouraged to continue. “Little by little, we grew,” Mr. Zaffuto says. “We started a website and created an email account. The very first web pages, we didn’t update from our own computers — we did it from Internet cafes and did it quickly and then left quickly. “We were anonymous — we didn’t have a name. We were holding our meetings in secret.” Their protest turned to a search for solutions and the idea of a commercial organization whose members refuse to pay pizzo, and publicly declare it as a mark of good business, was born. Acceptance was slow. And no wonder: Most The orange circled-X logo of Addiopizzo, meaning 'goodbye pizzo,' is displayed in shop Adrian Humphrey s f or National Post w indow s by business ow ners w ho refuse to pay pizzo, protection money to the Mafia, in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, the everyone in Palermo knew what happened birthplace of the Mafia. to a local clothing manufacturer named Libero Grassi when he refused to pay pizzo in 1991. Mr. Grassi wrote an open letter of refusal, published in the island’s largest newspaper. It began: “Dear extortionist.” The community, however, did not rally around him; customers and employees were nervous; competitors critical and police perplexed. Soon after, his factory was broken into and the only thing stolen was the exact amount of money the mob had previously demanded. A few months after that, Mr. Grassi was shot dead in the street. His widow, Pina Grassi, blamed his murder not just on the Mafia but on the silence of the business community, indifference of the citizens and absence of the state. Feeling Mrs. Grassi could be trusted not to be in league with the Mafia, Addiopizzo asked her to head a committee to vet membership. The problem was, there were no applicants to assess. Valeria Di Leo and Fabio Messina celebrate on March 09, 2008 the opening of their MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO/AFP/Getty Images “We didn’t have any requests. We had to go store, the first shop in Palermo show casing goods from businesses w ho refuse to pay mafia extortion fees. out and look for people. They were uncertain, frightened,” says Mr. Zaffuto. Most of the first members were, like Mrs. Grassi, those who had already been savaged by the mob, including the brother of murdered anti-Mafia activist Peppino Impastato and the pharmacy owned by the family of Paolo Borsellino, the slain anti-Mafia prosecutor. It was meant as a message to the town that it is not possible to refuse to pay To give mainstream business a nudge, in 2005, the group published the names of 3,500 consumers pledging to support Mafia-free news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/23/beating-the-mafia-at-their-own-game-after-years-of-paying-a-protection-tax-palermo-businesses-came-together-to-fight… 3/9 28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post shops. The following year, the campaign officially began when it released the names of the first 100 business members. Addiopizzo’s big test came quickly. Rodolfo Guajana, owner of a hardware wholesale company, was one of those early members and he had refused to pay pizzo to mob boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo. He suffered warning vandalism. Then, in 2007, someone cut a hole in the roof of his warehouse, poured in gasoline and torched it. “It was meant as a message to the town that it is not possible to refuse to pay,” says Mr. Zaffuto. “It was the most critical point for Addiopizzo because for a year we had been saying that if we stay together, the Mafia cannot attack us.
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