Amazon boss Jeff Bezos bows to protests over Venice wedding

Activists in Venice protesting against Jeff Bezos’s wedding to Lauren Sanchez in the city are claiming victory after the mogul was forced to switch venues.

Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos and partner Lauren Sanchez. Picture: AFP

Activists in Venice protesting against Jeff Bezos’s star-studded wedding in the city this week are claiming victory after the Amazon mogul was forced to cancel his use of a venue and switch to a better-protected location.

Mr Bezos’s plan to party at a 16th-century hall in the centre of Venice during his three-day bash was called off after protesters threatened to leap into the canals around the venue with inflatable crocodiles to stop guests arriving.

“Bezos is on the run – this is a crazy victory for a small group of people with no money who went up against one of the richest men on the planet,” Tommaso Cacciari, a leading protester, said.

Among the 200 people said to have been invited to the billionaire’s wedding to the journalist Lauren Sanchez are President Donald Trump’s children Don Jr and Ivanka, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, the singer Katy Perry and Bill Gates.

TIvanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner board a taxi boat after their arrival at Venice Marco Polo airport.

T Jared Kushner and two of his children stand on a taxi boat as they arrive at the St Regis Hotel ahead of the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in Venice.

Guests are due to fly in on 95 private jets. Airports in Venice and nearby Treviso and Verona will all be used to avoid disruptions to normal air traffic, Corriere della Sera reported.

Protesters accuse Mr Bezos of arrogantly shutting down Venice for a private event and are also attacking him for his labour practices and allegedly low tax bill.

Greenpeace and a British group called Everyone Hates Elon laid out a banner in St Mark’s Square reading “If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax” over a photo of Mr Bezos.

Mr Bezos is expected to arrive in Venice on his superyacht and get the festivities started on Thursday on the beach at the Lido, the strip of land protecting the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic.

A Greenpeace banner in St Mark’s Square, Venice, targeting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Picture: Greenpeace via AP.

The party moves on the next day to a tiny island, San Giorgio Maggiore, opposite St Mark’s Square, where a concert may be held in an open-air amphitheatre.

The final party was to have been held on Saturday at the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, a huge hall easily reached by foot or water.

Mr Cacciari said the event had been moved to one of the halls at Venice’s former shipyard, the Arsenale. “We won’t try to protest there,” he said.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez attend the 11th Breakthrough Prize ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.

Not all Venetians are opposed to the wedding. A group of businesses and hoteliers called Yes Venice Can have expressed pride that Mr Bezos picked the city.

“We won’t allow a noisy minority to discredit Venice before the world,” they said, adding that no one had protested when the actor George Clooney married in the city in 2014.

Mr Bezos has donated €1m ($1.79m) to Corila, an organisation that protects the environment of the Venice lagoon.

THE TIMES