A blackout shut down Cagliari's nightlife last night. The affected area is between Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and Via Portoscalas, in the Stampace neighborhood, one of the city's busiest areas for bars and restaurants. A power outage left businesses in the dark from around 9:40 PM until 2:15 AM, right in the middle of Friday evening . Several establishments, some with full dining rooms, were forced to shut down service entirely. Despite hours of waiting in the hope of the power returning, business was unable to resume throughout the evening, resulting in significant financial losses for the businesses involved, according to local restaurateurs. They then ask: "Who will compensate the shopkeepers for an evening's work lost due to a blackout that lasted over four hours?"
"Unfortunately, this isn't the first time we've faced situations like this, and every time, it means managing an emergency in the middle of evening business for businesses," says Emanuele Frongia, president of Fipe Confcommercio Sud Sardegna . "When the power goes out, word of mouth immediately starts to spread among colleagues. We try to understand what's happening and get information, but getting a quick response is often difficult. Last night, some businesses had to wait 40-50 minutes before getting directions.
In the meantime," he adds, "we need to manage customers, trying, where possible, to continue service and limit disruption. But without power, a bar or restaurant can do very little: the premises inevitably empty, the evening's business is compromised, and there is also a risk of problems with food preservation. An outage that began around 9:30 PM and continued for several hours, in an area with a high concentration of catering businesses, has a significant economic impact . The most worrying thing is that this is not a completely new episode. Operators now, paradoxically, almost expect it to happen, but it cannot be considered a normal situation. Those who run a business have costs, staff, and customers to serve, and must be able to count on reliable essential services and, when a failure occurs, at least timely and reliable information on restoration times."