Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s plans of an extravagant, multi-day Venice wedding have turned a significant fraction of locals against the billionaire. Even certain city officials have joined the residents in saying no to the star-studded lavish spread expected to disrupt ordinary lives this month.

Despite the Municipality of Venice’s initial approval of the Amazon leader’s decision to tie the knot in their city, Venetians took to streets and kicked off heated demonstrations last week. Flashing posters like “NO SPACE FOR BEZOS” marked in red, Italian activists spoke out against the World Heritage City being turned into a “playground for billionaires” amid peak tourist season.

Venice mayor more than happy to welcome Jeff Bezos,

An official statement highlighted, “Only 200 guests will have been invited and therefore it will be easy for Venice to accommodate such an event, without any disruption whatsoever to the city, its residents and visitors.” But as seething protests consumed the city, Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro was left with no choice but to sound out an alarm. Unlike the locals, Brugnaro is actually more than happy to roll out the carpet for Bezos and Sanchez.

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Taking a starkly contrasting stand on the matter, he expressed support in celebrating the couple’s nuptials in Venice. “I want Jeff Bezos to be welcomed with open arms in Venice,” he told reporters. “Protesting against those who bring visibility and wealth to our territory is, in my opinion, a disgrace.”

Calling the Amazon icon “such an important person,” he added, “We will have to apologise to Bezos. I am ashamed of those who behave like this. I hope that Bezos comes anyway. Not all Venetians think like these protestors.”

‘No Space for Bezos’ protests explained

The “No Space for Bezos” campaign is actually a group that brings together various Venetian collectives. Federica Toninelli, an activist affiliated with the protests, said, “Venice is being treated like a showcase, a stage. And this wedding is the symbol of the exploitation of the city by outsiders… Venice is now just an asset.”

Toninelli also told the BBC that the Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sanchez wedding will turn Venice into a “place that puts tourists, rather than residents, at the centre of its politics.”

In a critical social media post, activists further accused the conservative mayor of treating the locals “like a nuisance… because for him the only valid use of Venice is as a backdrop for events that make the rich richer.”

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Bezos and Sanchez’s marital extravaganza reportedly bears a $10 million price-tag. The festivities set to commence on June 24, are expected to source an estimated 80% of provisions from local Venetian vendors, as per NewsNation. Even then, protestors like Toninelli foregrounded that the Amazon leader “represent(s) a future we don’t want and a world we don’t want to live in.”

Meanwhile, the mayor asserted that the couple’s wedding influx would “reinforce the role of Venice as a place of encounters and hospitality.”

Unlike him, Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition member of the city council, slammed the “extreme case of the Disneyfication of Venice. He further pushed that the event “won’t bring any benefit to ordinary Venetians” and only “cause inconvenience.”