Cannes Private View

Cannes and other towns have long been plagued by (or served by) street vendors selling counterfeit brands of handbags, dark glasses and other luxury goods. Well perhaps no more: Cannes announces crackdown Implementing Article 321-1 of the French penal code, persons found buying counterfeit goods are guilty of possession, punishable by a fine of up to e375,000 and 5-year prison term.

Street professions (entertainers and such) are also banned from the seafront from April to September and other main streets during conferences and conventions. Though Cannes has swept the Croisette clean, we noticed Nice has cleared them from the Promenade too. So take care of bargain offers - tourists are already being prosecuted! You may think a third of a million dollars fine is a bit stiff for buying a dodgy pair of sunglasses, but thats the maximum., and some tourists have actually been fined a couple of thousand dollars. Notice they don’t fine the street vendors, because they dont have much money.

The best way to discourage them is if there are no customers. Needless to say in Ventimiglia there are still armies of street vendors, some trading within eyesight of the policestation, oblivious. Its the French customs at the border crossing you have to worry about.

Take out a second mortgage and buy the real thing?