Expensive coffee: Customer at Italy coffee bar calls police over price of espresso

After an upset client complained to the police over the price of a hot drink, a Florence coffee shop was fined $1,048. On Monday, the Florence coffee shop Ditta Artigianale was fined for failing to publish the price of a cup of coffee on its counter. One client had complained to the police about the $2.01 price of a decaffeinated cup of coffee.

The coffee in question, according to Ditta Artigianale, came from a Mexican plantation and was "processed with great care by baristas." In Italy, an espresso costs roughly €1, but several bars have raised their rates this year.

The bar's owner said he was "willing to pay for my faults," but he criticised the law and the penalties, claiming that the price was shown on a computerised menu.

"I believe that with everything that is served in bars today, this law has so much absurdity and should be changed, otherwise 99.9 per cent of bars and restaurants would easily be wrong," Francesco Sanapo wrote on Facebook.

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The Ditta Artigianale coffee bar is well-known throughout Tuscany, and their coffee-making has earned multiple awards.

Some of the bar's regulars have also taken to social media to defend the establishment, with one joking that if the man had reacted the same way in London, he would have called the intelligence.
 

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