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23/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post
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ADRIAN HUMPHREYS | Jan 23, 2013 11:35 PM ET
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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.”
Beating the Mafia at their own game: Afteryears of paying a ‘protection’ tax, Palermobusinesses came together to fight back
Adrian Humphrey s f or National PostEdoardo 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.
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.
28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post
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
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
conjured its use for the protection racket,
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.
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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
Adrian Humphrey s f or National PostFabio Conticello pauses outside his busy restaurant in dow ntow n Palermo, capital of Sicily, the
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.'
28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post
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
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
everyone in Palermo knew what happened
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.
“We didn’t have any requests. We had to go
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
Adrian Humphrey s f or National PostThe orange circled-X logo of Addiopizzo, meaning 'goodbye pizzo,' is displayed in shop
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
birthplace of the Mafia.
MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO/AFP/Getty ImagesValeria Di Leo and Fabio Messina celebrate on March 09, 2008 the opening of their
store, the f irst shop in Palermo show casing goods from businesses w ho refuse to pay mafia extortion fees.
28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post
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… 4/9
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. But they tried to show that they could attack whomever they wanted.”
A mobster doesn’t destroy a business when he wants a victim to pay, only when he knows a victim will never pay. The victim is then
sacrificed as a warning to others.
If Mr. Guajana’s story ended like Mr. Grassi’s, Addiopizzo would be dead.
This time, encouraged by Addiopizzo, the
community sent a message of its own.
Collections were taken to help Mr. Guajana,
crowds came to show he wasn’t alone, and
trade associations stood by him. Local
government found him an even larger
warehouse as a replacement. And,
significantly, Lo Piccolo and his henchmen
were arrested and imprisoned.
Rather than the end of Addiopizzo, it was its
confirmation.
Last year, the organization accepted its
1,000th business member to display its
orange logo.
As well as drawing customers, the logos
actually repel voracious mobsters, says Mr.
Ferrara, the prosecutor.
“Many investigations demonstrated that
the so-called ‘men of honour’ tend to avoid
committing extortions and similar crimes
against members and associates of this kind of association,” he says.
Mr. Ferrara has listened to police wiretaps and heard mafiosi ordering their men to not hit an Addiopizzo store because they are sure
they will not be paid and they fear being arrested.
It is a remarkable change in Palermo, where even powerful and protected people who crossed the Mafia were brutally and publicly
murdered.
Addiopizzo itself is evolving.
From its anonymous, secret meetings, it now as its own offices — a spacious downtown pad with the most perfect history.
As Mr. Zaffuto reminisces, he leans back on a couch sipping espresso behind heavy, wooden doors and up a curving staircase, knowing
this office was once a condominium owned by Tomasso “Masino” Spadaro, the local Mafia boss. Spadaro had made millions smuggling
cigarettes and extorting pizzo from neighbourhood shops.
Under Italy’s laws, property of convicted mobsters is seized and can be turned over to groups and organizations to benefit the
community. Confiscated property includes farms that now produce Mafia-free wine, bread and produce; villas that have been turned
into hotels and restaurants; and many other businesses.
To link them, Addiopizzo recently started Addiopizzo Travel, a side business that runs Mafia-free trips for tourists.
All of it suggests a significant shift in the balance of power in the state’s war with the Mafia.
MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO/AFP/Getty ImagesYoung members of the anti-mafia Addiopizzo committee celebrate after the arrest of
mafia boss Giovanni Nicchi on Dec. 5, 2009 in Palermo.
28/01/13 Palermo, Italy, businesses pledge not to pay ‘pizzo’ to Mafia | World | News | National Post
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… 5/9
Grassroots opposition to the mob, says Mr.
Ferrara, the prosecutor, is bringing “real
change of mind and of behaviour in many
people, pushing them to cooperate as never
happened in the past.”
The Mafia has not found a response. At the
bustling Antica, Mr. Conticello’s restaurant
thrives, serving his ancestors’ recipes to
more mouths than ever before.
When Addiopizzo moved into the mobster’s
old condo to renovate it as their offices,
volunteers found a secret exit in a back
room. Although tempted to leave it, they
sealed it over.
They have no intention of sneaking away.
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Topics: News, World, Italy, Organized Crime, Palermo, Pizzo
29 comments
Comments for this thread are now closed.Comments for this thread are now closed. ××
DiscussionDiscussion CommunityCommunity ##ShareShare
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Delphicorc • 4 days ago
What a tremendous story, surely this is an an example for all communities, held hostage by extortionists, to follow.
76 △ ▽
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Oldfe l la72 • 4 days ago> Delphicorc
Extortion is still extortion who ever does it and I suspect people here are just as fed up with it as the people in Palermo were
with the mafia. In fact the mafia respect people who defend themselves, the governments prosecute them. I know one thing for sure no
one steals from the mafia, they do'nt like criminals either!
15 △ 1 ▽
•
zeem an1 • 4 days ago> Delphicorc
Basic lesson from human history:
Strength in numbers.
7 △ ▽
Ford • 4 days ago
Remarkable what people an do when they stand together. They have outmaneuvered the thugs who are backing away.
0★
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Adrian Humphrey s f or National PostPalermo, the capital of Sicily, the birthplace of the Mafia. Adrian Humphreys for National Post
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