Gondoliers to face random breath tests in drink crackdown

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Gondoliers are to face spot breathalyser checks in a drink-driving crackdown on Venice's increasingly unruly and crowded canals. At the moment, Italy's navigation code does not cover the whole Venetian lagoon, enabling boatmen to escape police checks on the use of alcohol or drugs.

That legal loophole is now being closed by the city authorities, alongside other regulations introduced last week to ease congestion of Venice's canals. "In the lagoon right now only part of the navigation code can be applied," said Annibale Tagliapietra, a senior official in the office of Paolo Costa, the mayor of Venice. "P olice are unable to check a person's mental state and hence his ability to skipper a boat, or subsequently to impound the boat or suspend his licence."

The breathalyser, or palloncino as it is known in Italy, is being introduced by Guido Bertolaso, the head of Italy's civil protection authority, and Mr Costa. Although speed traps were introduced six years ago, a spate of accidents and increased congestion have further focused minds on safety. Last July, a woman drowned when a boat whose skipper was believed to have been drinking hit a water bus.

Franco Vianello Moro, the president of the Association of Gondoliers, told The Sunday Telegraph that he was unaware of any "drink-drive" accidents involving gondolas but admitted that it was "fair to assume that a certain percentage of gondoliers piloted their boats under the excessive influence of alcohol".