I was at a restaurant in Italy and they kept bringing us bottles of mineral water. I go back to the restroom and see the waiter refilling the bottle from the tap them tried to bill the table for 7 bottles of mineral water. I disputed the check, we shouldn’t have to pay full price for tap water. There was nashing of the teeth until I said that is seen them refilling the bottle.
Italy’s top court rules against tourist refused tap water in Dolomites hotel
Submitted 4 days ago by Valuy@lemmy.zip to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/26/italy-court-tourist-tap-water-dolomites-hotel
Comments
EnderLaw@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
You’re right and correct, but it’s a bit insane you didn’t feel the difference. Or was tap water over there like über fantastic 😁?
Nighed@feddit.uk 4 days ago
If your in the mountains, the tap water is better than most bottled water.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 days ago
A lot of the mineral water you buy is tap water. It’s the same water the people in the area where the water is bottled drink. It even says so on the bottle sometimes.
kilgore_trout@feddit.it 3 days ago
Tap water is good here in the Alps.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
assuming we’re not talking about sparkling water, which some people call mineral water: Is it really that common outside of america for tap water to not taste fine?
I’ve never had bottled water where the taste was in any way remarkable, except from some brands that just taste like stale water where the plastic bottle leeched into it…Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ve got an RO filter for my drinking water at home. I haven’t tried a bottled water that I like as much as my RO tap water. I suspect that even if I filled a plastic water bottle with that water and let it sit for the expected duration a bought one would sit for, it would also not be as good. I don’t think plastic is as inert of a material as we like to pretend it is, or that BPA is the only bad plastic chemical to avoid.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Italy, the Nestle of nations
dan1101@lemmy.world 4 days ago
So many good things there, but their legal system seems wacko.
StillAlive@piefed.world 4 days ago
I’ve asked for water from poor villagers while hiking (I’m from India) and they have filled my bottle without expecting anything in return.
Italy’s restaurant industry and justice system seems like a dick.
twinnie@feddit.uk 4 days ago
That’s mental. It’d be illegal in many countries. In the UK any place that sells alcohol has to give free water.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 4 days ago
What’s mental is she offered to pay for the tap water and they still refused.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s really low class of the Hotel restaurant, and I am pretty sure it would be illegal in most countries.
Janx@piefed.social 2 days ago
Them refusing to fill a glass with tap water is actually insane. As long as the water is potable. Maybe it’s my american-ness showing, but this is a human requirement. She was staying there for a week and they already had her money. You can go a week without food, but not water. And they were even already providing the food! Let’s imagine this was a space resort… We’d all be outraged if they denied her oxygen, or charged her separately after arriving, right!?
I understand that my boycott will be considered insignificant, but I will never, ever spend a single € in Italy following this ruling. And don’t you dare mention the term “etiquette” when referring to basic essential human needs…
atrielienz@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I don’t think it should have been a problem to provide her with tap water (rather than mineral water which is not the same thing), especially since she offered to pay for it. Is there something wrong with the tap water?
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
In Berlin for eg its tough to get tap water. You ask for it and get it 20mins later after a 2nd request. It’s more see as a task for something that customer wants but is not directly tied to making income.
(I don’t want a yes but reply). Just a comment.
chris@l.roofo.cc 3 days ago
Germany is very weird about water. We have clean good tap water everywhere but restaurants want you to pay for bottled water. I have been to a few countries and most of them give you water without asking. But not Germany.
Tortellinius@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yes but the reasom for that most of the time is that you can’t book tab water in the system, so it falls short of memory more often unfortunately. Moreso in a busy shift.
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Yes but
wander1236@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
It’s considered a breach of etiquette to not want to be forced to pay for water? A lawsuit over being refused tap water at a restaurant in a non-emergency scenario seems a little silly, but refusing tap water also seems a little silly unless it isn’t potable.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 4 days ago
She offered to pay for it!
the woman repeatedly asked for tap water with her meal, even offering to pay for it.
macaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Where there are fancy hotels, there are people who have enough money to sue out of spite.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m glad she lost.
More than a billion people lack safe drinking water and almost two and a half billion live without access to sanitation systems.
It’s about getting people out of poverty, making sure multinationals don’t steal or pollute drinking water for their benefit,etc…
That’s the reason why the UN and other organizations declared it a universal human right.
Or on an individual level a dangerously dehydrated person in some desert should not be refused water.
This woman’s situation having to buy a bottle is in no way comparable and frankly it’s insulting.
That place is a high end ski resort.
She shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t want to serve tap water.
It’s a snobby attitude, “vulgar tap water is something the plebs drink!”
The kind of place where they also charge extras for the smallest of services.
We don’t have to like it but it’s the place she chose to stay in.
In no way did she not have access to water. If she really wanted to drink tap water she could’ve filled a bottle in her undoubtedly fancy bathroom. But probably she didn’t want to look like the a cheapskate.
So no, her human rights have not been violated.
This is rich Karen drama queen behavior.chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Water is a universal human right, except when it involves people I dislike. Thats what you sound like
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Guess she’s not the only Karen.
You would probably cry about your human right to food being violated when a 3 star restaurant denies you entrance because you showed up in your filthy flip flops.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 days ago
“We shouldn’t improve anything because someone else has it worse”.
If we followed this everyone wouldn’t have access to sanitation.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s a high end resort with its own heli pad.
They will serve the cuisine and drinks they have on their undoubtedly carefully curated menu.
If they don’t like it, don’t go there, leave a nasty Yelp review or whatever, end of story.This has absolutely nothing to do with ‘access to sanitation’ as you imagine here or worse that woman’s dramatic claim of violating her human rights to water.
Making the equation with billions of people that are suffering and dying to this day from lack of warter is grotesk and offensive.
This pretentious Karen wasted the court’s time and resources twice for her shameful whims.
It improves absolutely nothing.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 days ago
Man, that’s hard. When I go there I try to follow etiquette closely, it’s their custom and I want to follow it, and the woman may have been a bit of a Karen.
However, tap water should be free. Anywhere. Maybe I just hiked a mile to get there. Maybe I’m just thirsty. 7 euro to drink water is simply extortion of your tourists. If that’s etiquette then it’s wrong.
frischkaesbagett@feddit.org 3 days ago
Fuck posh etiquettes.
Why are you naming her Karen - she sounds badass. Fighting in court for water everywhere sounds good to me.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 days ago
If you haven’t been to Italy, there are quite a few cultural differences to be aware of. One of them is generally you don’t make demands, dinner is an experience that you are there to have and they want to give you their experience. So it’s at least worth calling out that it could be part of the experience they want you to have.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
She did offer to pay for it, but they still refused.
fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
It is extorsion. When you live in a touristic place, I think at some point you just stop seeing people as people. I know I can’t stand living in such a place anymore, personally. Not necessarily tourists themselves, but the absolute corruption that tourism brought to the place and its surroundings. So much greed.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 days ago
It depends on the tourist place. Europe is very stingy with water, but other tourist parts of the world aren’t.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You do realise that tap water isn’t free in many European countries, right? They have a meter and get a bill every month.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
It’s literally less than a cent (euro or dollar) for a whole bottle of tap water.
Out of curiosity I checked the price I pay for tap water in Portugal and 1 m³ (1000 l) costs around €0.5, so a 2l bottle of tap water costs all of 0.01 cents.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Is tap water free anywhere? Its more that the cost is so miniscule and the need so great that it shouldn’t really matter if you’re giving away $0.000001 worth of tap water, especially to someone paying to eat at your restaurant or stay at your hotel.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That’s also the case in a lot of north american cities. If you’re pumping your own well out in the country, then it’s “free” (plus costs of running the pump and any well maintenance you need, also depending on availability in your water table), but if you’re in a town or city you have a matered water line that gets charged to cover both the clean water supply and waste management (at least that’s how it works in the Canadian town I live in, maybe other locations meter the waste side, too).
My water bill gets lumped with my power bill but they are itemized seperately with usage graphs for each of them.
If someone needed water, I’d give it to them without even thinking about the cost because my whole month of water use is only like $50 (and the metered bit is only $20 of that, though that does imply the lighter users are subsidizing the heavier ones, but that’s a seperate issue).