From Catholic News Service

Alcohol, suggestive ads banned in cities Pope visited

By Jonathan Luxmoore, Catholic News Service

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Polish cities visited by Pope Benedict XVI prohibited alcohol sales and banned sexually suggestive ads on TV and public billboards during his trip.

Most small drinking outlets closed in Warsaw while Pope Benedict was in the capital, and restaurants offered only coffee or tea to clients.

Police said the May 25-28 prohibitions in cities such as Warsaw and Krakow were intended to maintain order and show respect for the 79-year-old pontiff and had generally been observed.

However, bottles of spirits were traded at high prices in Warsaw's Rozycki market, while a police spokeswoman, Agnieszka Manelusz, said quantities of alcohol were seized from several bootleg traders.

One garage owner told raiding officers she was storing 250 gallons of spirits for a wedding, Manelusz said.

A journalist from Poland's commercial RMF radio, Tomasz Skory, said he had bought alcoholic drinks "without trouble" at the main restaurant in Poland's parliament, the Sejm.

"The waiter brought us whisky and beer and took the money for them," Skory said. "After a while, he returned and asked us to sit farther back in the restaurant, explaining no one there had heard about the prohibition."

Bozena Kowalska, a merchant on Warsaw's Solidarity Avenue, said she had heard few complaints about the alcohol ban.

"We don't have a lot of drunks in this part of town, and people are used to this small sacrifice from previous Papal visits," Kowalska said in a May 28 Catholic News Service interview.

"A ban is a ban, so I just covered the shelves in wrapping paper," she said. "Several people begged to buy just one beer. But how was I to know they weren't undercover police?"

Polish TV stations suspended commercials for underwear and tampons as well as suggestive consumer ads, and carefully selected appropriate programs for airing during the pilgrimage.

Sexually suggestive ads were also removed from city billboards during the four-day visit, while Polish tabloids refrained from publishing topless models on their back pages.

However, a giant poster of bikini-clad females was displayed in a storefront at Warsaw's main intersection, close to the route of the Popemobile.

Copyright (c) 2003 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.