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Rubbish crisis shuts top restaurant

One of Italy’s most famous restaurants, the Caruso in Naples, is being forced to close, victim of a rubbish collection crisis that has submerged the city under piles of refuse, shut schools and crippled tourism.

After months of struggling with dwindling numbers of diners, the rooftop restaurant, from where the likes of Humphrey Bogart, the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Bill Clinton have marvelled at the view across the bay of Naples, is to shut on Sunday.

“We just could not go on with three or so people showing up for dinner and no guests at all at lunch,” said general manager Maria Claudia Cardinale.

Due to a shortage of city dumps, local protests over the location of new overflow sites, delays in the completion of an incinerator and mafia infiltration of refuse collection contracts, the removal of waste in Naples has been sporadic for months. With many cruise ships steaming past the city, occupancy at the Grand Hotel Vesuvio, which houses the Caruso restaurant, had hovered around 29 per cent this year, down from 47 per cent in early 2007.

Opened in 1919 on the ninth floor of the hotel on Naples’ seafront, the Caruso was named after legendary local opera singer Enrico Caruso who took a suite at the hotel after a career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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