Venice is gearing up to put an official end to polemics over a planned deal with Coca-Cola when it releases a public call for tenders to supply vending machines to the lagoon city.
Venice city council had been negotiating with the drinks giant to provide the machines in a sponsorship deal that would have guaranteed the city five million euros over five years to spend on preserving its monuments.
But Venice Mayor Massimo Cacciari was forced to take a step back after critics claimed Venice was ''selling itself'' to Coca-Cola in an agreement that would see vending machines in St Marks Square, where tourists are forbidden from picnicking under strict council rules on urban decorum.
The city council's assurances that the vending machines would be restricted to vaporetti landing stages and car parks and would not bear the Coca-Cola logo has failed to quell the row.
Cacciari announced the decision to make a call for tenders in March, saying the move ''was the most transparent way of doing things''.
''Everyone who has publicly declared that under the same conditions as the Coca-Cola deal they would happily make more advantageous offers will now be able to come forward and compete,'' he said at the time.
The call for tenders, in which Coca-Cola is free to participate, will be published in the next few days and will remain open for a month.
The deal is to supply around 80 drinks and snacks vending machines to Venice, with 38 placed on vaporetti jetties, 27 aboard ferries, 14 near ticket machines, two near public toilets in the Giardinetti Reali and 14 on the mainland near bus stations and the entrances to Mestre's Parco San Giuliano.
The machines will not bear advertising slogans, instead displaying information about exhibitions and museum events.
The call for tenders fixes the value of the deal at 500,000 euros a year, increasing by at least another 500,000 euros a year if the deal is then renewed.
Cacciari has long bemoaned a lack of state funds for the upkeep of city monuments and churches and insisted that the Coca-Cola deal would have been no different from others adopted in the past as part of an ''indispensable'' financial strategy.
The mayor warned in February that Venice's monuments and churches risked falling into ruin because too much state aid is being directed into a controversial project to protect the lagoon city from sinking.
