There are two kinds of tourist destinations. There's the overt and proud to be tourist destination places like Vegas and then theres the myriad of "look how qu

There are two kinds of tourist destinations. There's the overt and proud to be tourist destination places like Vegas and then theres the myriad of "look how quaint we are" places for people who wanna be a tourist without feeling like a tourist. Florence is in the latter camp and so of course from time to time they're gonna ban overt markers of tourism along with anything else that runs contrary to their brand image. Places like this exist in an equilibrium between two types of terrible and also terribly stupid people. The first knows the gig. They want to lighten the tourist pockets and they want to do business things that go with that. The second group believes their own bullshit and is constantly trying to get the municipality to move in the direction of some "traditional" past. Banning lock boxes is what a victory for the latter group looks like. Source: Grew up in one of these places. They make resource extraction economies look like paragons of virtue and honest business.