Modica Publishes Temporary Store Rules as Historic Centre Committee Protests Exclusion
Deliberation No 91, with amendments, is now on the town's notice board, but the committee says most of its proposals were dropped from the final text.
The municipal administration of Modica has published on the town's official notice board the Consiglio comunale deliberation No 91 governing so-called temporary stores, complete with the amendments approved in the council chamber's most recent sitting. The publication drew a protest from the Historic Centre Committee (Comitato Centro Storico), which contests above all the method followed by the administration.
In a statement reported on 30 September 2026, the committee said it had spent months in meetings, encounters and discussions, advancing proposals and contributing to the building of shared solutions for the historic centre, and that almost all of those proposals had failed to enter the provision. Its stated requests included stricter criteria for granting the concessions, measures in support of businesses open throughout the year, and stronger guarantees against stock, outlet and disguised clearance sales. The committee asked what purpose the time its members had taken from their own daily activities had served, and what purpose the invitation to collaborate on a shared text had served "if almost all of the proposals did not enter the provision".
On 1 October 2026, Antonio Ruta, speaking on behalf of the committee, sharpened the criticism into a broader assessment of the city's administrative action and political management, describing a city standing still, folded back on its internal tensions and far from the real needs of its citizens. On the temporary stores, Mr Ruta said the council had never really taken on board the demands of operators and residents, producing a final text without efficacy: "They did not even manage to produce a real regulation: the elephant gave birth to a mouse." He placed the episode at the centre of the first of his criticisms.
The amended deliberation is now the text published for consultation on the municipal notice board. The committee's objections concern how far its own contributions were incorporated into that text, following what it describes as a round of participatory meetings with residents and operators held in the months beforehand.