De Luca takes bulldozer to drug dealing square, 'we're taking back the city'

Salerno's recently elected

centre-left Mayor Vincenzo De Luca, who returned to his post as

'The Sheriff' after 10 years as Campania governor, on Wednesday

took a bulldozer to a square in the city south of Naples which

is notorious for drug pushing.

The 77-year-old firebrand official's war on illegal parking

attendants, a staple of De Luca's first 17-year mayoral term,

had already been rekindled the day after his re-election in

April.

On Wednesday the sheriff added another piece to his

headline-grabbing saga as first citizen by showing up with a

small bulldozer in an open-air drug dealing square, a campground

poorly tolerated by residents of eastern Salerno, who, upon

seeing him arrive early in the morning, gave him a long round of

applause from their balconies.

The area in question is near the subway entrance on Via Fornari.

It's here that De Luca has begun demolition work on several

buildings.

The plan is to transform it into a children's playground.

"This," De Luca explained, "is one of the many areas that have

been abandoned for a long time. Frankly, I'm a bit angry.

"Let's start reclaiming this area.

"We'll make a beautiful playground for children here. We need to

take back control of the city. This place had been turned into a

camp for various groups.

"We were told that in the evenings it was a drug dealing hub."

The project involves the nearby Catholic parish.

"I've also spoken with the parish priest," he said, "and we'll

see about giving him the management of part of the park.

"We'd also like to consider a dog walking area. This is one of

the key areas of the garden city that we want to rebuild little

by little.

"We have," the mayor concluded, "a resource problem. But we're

moving forward. It's difficult to do more than we're doing."

De Luca made it clear that he wanted to pick up where he left

off the day after his re-election, reviewing the ongoing

construction sites.

"It's scandalous that construction work on Corso Vittorio

Emanuele has stopped," he thundered.

He then revived the war on illegal parking attendants during an

inspection of the Vestuti stadium, where an illegal parking

attendant took off on the lam from the irate official.

The war on parking attendants also included the launch—just

yesterday—of a special unit of the local police force, the

N.O.S. (Nucleo Operativo Sicurezza, Security Operations Unit),

which will be tasked with combating illegal parking attendants,

even encouraging citizens to report them by email.

"We've reached the point of extortion now. These people charge

five euros for every person who parks, especially women, so it's

truly a criminal activity that must be stopped." The sheriff

said he would be true to his word.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA