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…
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.
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.
I’ve heard that was rooted in the aftermath of WWII, infrastructure was destroyed and acquiring clean drinking water was difficult, so people started having a large reservation against tap water, sticking to bottled water, and it just stuck. Word-of-mouth history though, so grain of salt and all.
AFAIK it’s not about drinking tap water. Pretty much everyone knows that our water is high quality. It’s more that it’s not freely offered at restaurants and requesting it is sometimes even frowned upon. We went to a spot where a friend was rather rudely cut off after the second glass of water while the whole table was ordering the “expensive” drinks.
If you sit at a table in Australia they will bring you water and glasses when they come to give you menus (at a mid-expense cafe/restuarant).
At a low expense resturant/cafe/pub the water will be available in ready filled re-usable bottles on a table/fridge with stacks of glasses and you grab bottles and glasses for your table as needed.
In higher end resturants the waiter will seat you then ask if you would like any water and offer “tap, sparkling or still”. “Tap” in this case will be chilled and served in a nice caraf or jug, poured by the waiter. And the sparkling or still options are ‘brand name’ bottled water which you pay for.
Water is legally required to be served upon request in any food/drink serving establishment and you will be served immediately and without judgement just as if you were buying any other drink.
Recently I had a note-worthy experience at Marmelo in Melbourne CBD: The wait staff asked the usual “still or sparkling” I opted for still, as it’s usually free/tap but others opted for sparkling. Turns out the sparkling was from a tap so it was also free! And I’m noticing this more and more in establishments, in Melbourne at least.
No way! I love sparkling water but dont want to pay for the bullshit expensive french ones that reataurants uaually have, hopefully this catches on. Sparkling water is super common in Europe i have noticed, they have like low, medium & high fizz level options for bottles you buy at shops, and in Italy i even stopped at a place that had a public water fountain that had both still & sparkling water, which was weird given that public toilets all cost for use over there too.
I don’t think we have that rule in Germany. I only know that the cheapest drink on the menu must be non alcoholic.
Oh that is interesting. Though with how cheap your beer is i would probably just buy a lager instead.
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.
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.
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 😁?
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.
Well, IMO not Italian bottled water and definitely not sparkling.
It’s the only country having better sparkling water than France even.
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.
Good for you to have decent tap water!
But real mineral water is another beast, you can’t make that at home.
Tap water is good here in the Alps.
If your in the mountains, the tap water is better than most bottled water.
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…Well then you have to go on a tour to france/italy, their sparkling water is fantastic (slightly fresh of course).
Especially good on the terrace of a café in the spring …
In sweden they sell stale water and leftover wine so (gissar att du är svensk 😁?)
The water was still.
I guessed so, tap water is rarely sparkling 😁
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.
She did offer to pay for it, but they still refused.
Fuck posh etiquettes.
Let’s not name her Karen - she sounds badass. Fighting in court for water everywhere sounds good to me.
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.
“a really affordable premium experience” as a not so wise man once said.
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.
It depends on the tourist place. Europe is very stingy with water, but other tourist parts of the world aren’t.
In France it’s illegal to refuse serving tap water in restaurants, and it is always free.
You can also drink water on public taps anywhere, usually in public parks. For free.I know it’s not quite as good in the rest of Europe, but I am not sure how you got this idea we are stingy with water. At least it’s potable!
France is the only country I’ve been to in Europe that does a good job providing water.
You do realise that tap water isn’t free in many European countries, right? Buildings have a meter and the owner or tenant gets a bill every month.
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).
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 contains all of 0.01 euro cents worth of it.
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.
Italy, the Nestle of nations
So many good things there, but their legal system seems wacko.
That’s mental. It’d be illegal in many countries. In the UK any place that sells alcohol has to give free water.
What’s mental is she offered to pay for the tap water and they still refused.
That’s really low class of the Hotel restaurant, and yes I am pretty sure it would be illegal in most countries.
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?
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.
She offered to pay for it!
the woman repeatedly asked for tap water with her meal, even offering to pay for it.
WTF is wrong with wanting water to a meal she pays for? Here our quality of tap water is generally better than tapped water, I imagine it could easily be the same in a mountain hotel in Italy.
Where there are fancy hotels, there are people who have enough money to sue out of spite.
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.Water is a universal human right, except when it involves people I dislike. Thats what you sound like
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.
Just downvote like the other cowards who have no arguments so you look less like a fool and get on your way.
LOL
