Prato, 29 October (AKI) - The northern Italian city of Prato has decided to ban the sale of sex-shops, laundrettes and the sale of kebabs in the city-centre. It claims the move is aimed at preserving Prato's cultural, traditional and environmental heritage.

"Our intention is to contain the cases of urban decay which is being seen in many parts of Prato's historic centre, and thus to improve decorum, which will upgrade the entire city," said the municipality of Prato said in a statement.

The municipality has singled out certain businesses which it considers considered "incompatible" with this aim.

"Among the incompatible activities inside the Urban Pedestrian Zones (APU) are the handcrafted cooking of foods such as Kebabs and similar, which are different from those 'traditional' ones, as well as self-service laundrymats, game rooms, sex shops, discount and hard-discount stores, phone centres, Internet points and money transfer places," said the note.

"Activities considered incompatible with the area's cultural and environmental characteristics cannot be set-up."

The move has already been approved temporarily by the district council and will become part of new regulations for the historic centre, to which the current centre-right administration will give final approval in the next few months.

Prato, located in the region of Tuscany and has a population of 185,000 inhabitants. Since the 1950s it has been a destination for immigrants from within Italy also a substantial number of Chinese immigrants in recent decades.