The only newsstand in Lipari closes after almost a century, but, at 80 years old, Domenico Belletti doesn’t give up and transforms his red van into a small traveling sales point. The story is that of a family business founded in 1928 and now in its third generation, forced to close its doors today due to the cost of rent.
The rent is 3 thousand euros per month
Belletti had to leave the premises in Corso Vittorio Emanuele: 3 thousand euros a month have become an impossible sum to sustain. Thus newspapers, magazines and books found a place on the van, with which the elderly newsagent continues to guarantee a service to residents and tourists.
«I don’t want to take away a service from Lipari»
«I don’t want to take away a service from Lipari», says Belletti, who will turn 81 in two months. The family newsstand, born when newspapers reached the island on rowing boats, over time had also become a cultural reference point for those looking for books and publications on the history and nature of the Aeolian Islands, even in foreign languages.
«I’m trying to resist in this way – says Belletti speaking of his “mobile newsstand” – because I don’t want to take away a service from these islands. But in two months I’ll be eighty-one, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to have the strength, I’m a bit tired. Solidarity? I know they have written messages, but nothing concrete from the institutions.”