A pastizzi vendor was slapped with a €3,000 fine by a court on Thursday for failing to hand out a fiscal receipt for a €1.70 pizza.

The incident took place on November 24, 2022 when two tax inspectors conducting surprise inspections in Paola observed the transaction between the pastizzeria employee and his customer.

After watching from a distance, they followed the customer as he walked away with his pizza and asked him for the fiscal receipt, but he had none.

So they asked him to walk back with them to the pastizzeria where the seller, Glenn Gerald Urry - a shop employee - promptly issued the relative receipt when told to do so by the inspectors.

 Urry was subsequently charged with breaching VAT laws.

When testifying in the proceedings the tax inspectors said that when they checked the cash register, they noted that the last receipt issued before that pizza sale was an hour or so earlier. They could tell that no fiscal receipts had been issued in that past hour because the paper roll was still attached to the cash register.

The accused explained that the cash register roll had run out and until he sourced a replacement, he “obviously couldn’t keep customers waiting.” However he admitted that he had not issued any manual receipts.

In light of that evidence Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace observed that Urry had admitted that he had issued no receipt. That meant that the charges were proved by his own admission, said the magistrate, condemning him to a €3,000 fine.