NO GRAZIE

Beach Cubicles? Italy Envisions a Post-Coronavirus Summer

Italian officials unveiled designs for Plexiglas modules that would allow people to, um, enjoy sand and surf again.

Is this the future? Italian officials plotting a post-coronavirus reopening of the country solicited designs that would allow people to return to the beaches. The options were unveiled Tuesday at a videoconference and are, shall we say, interesting. The schematics show Plexiglas cubicles plopped on the sand, just big enough for two chaise lounges and an umbrella. An Italian lifeguards group was unimpressed, its president telling a TV station: “I want to see who would shut themselves up in an enclosure like this, between four Plexiglas walls, under the scorching sun. We would make our customers die of dehydration. Whoever comes to the sea wants to stay in the open air and not in what looks like a chicken coop.”