How do I board a vaporetto if there's no machine to buy a ticket?

I think the non-judgemental South African lawyer deleted the thread himself, being displeased with the final post accusing him of being judgemental. It was fun reading his lawyerly arguments, though.

I read through his posts and he never mentioned he was South African. Someone else, maybe Nigel, asked if he was the person in another post who had mentioned arriving from South Africa. Not only did 'em' not acknowledge that he had made that post, arriving from a place doesn't mean that's where you live.

Thank you Sasha for explaining the proper procedure for entering when there is no ticket machine.

Ticket machines at the vaporetto stops are fairly new. For so many years, you could easily board without showing anything. You can still do that at stops with no ticket machine. But, you better have a valid ticket in your pocket as they do randomly check the boats. Instant 50Euro fine if you are caught without one. I've even seen the authorities walk somebody off the boat a few years ago to an ATM to get the 50Euro. But, the new ticket machines are quite nice. It's just so easy to have a valid ticket and validate it when boarding rather than paying 7Euro for each ride.

Larry, not only do you need a valid ticket "in your pocket", it better be a validated ticket. You hold it up to the little machine and it beeps to confirm the validation. If you board with an unvalidated ticket that is still a violation and you can be fined---just like riding a regional train without validating your ticket before boarding.

I thing everyone but one person knew "em" was not American or Canadian because he had a visa to enter the EU. We don't need visas.

His arguments were eloquent but esoteric, and also irrelevant. No Italian judge would have let him off. When you are in their country you have to follow their laws. Stepping on the boat ticketless and without i immediately informing the crewman as you board is a per se violation.

I have read on Tripadvisor that now it is a violation to even be on the boarding dock without a validated ticket or pass, except where there is no ticket machine. There are only a few vaporetto docks like that. They must have decided that it is much easier to do random checks of tickets on the dock instead of on the boats, which are often too crowded for that.

I am all for Venice doing whatever it need to do to raise revenue to keep the city afloat ( not literally). They are plagued with too many day visitors because of the cruise ships. There is talk of limiting the cruise ships and maybe the overal number of daily visitors to protect the city's infrastructure and treasures. Not a bad idea, IMHO.

It is also possible that he responded to the inspector in the same way he did in the missing thread. If so he shouldn't have been surprised at a fine.

It has been my experience that Italians, Venetian ACTV inspectors included, tend to respond very positively to politeness, recognition of the seriousness and importance of their job, and patience. Sometimes even if they are completely right they can and have walked away for a short time and when they come back things somehow go differently, if the offender has acted in a way that recognises his/her station.

Coming across as holier than thou, and then trying to blame the situation on a baby pram (surely as you climb on the boat with a baby, you carry the baby rather than try to push baby in a pram up over the gap and up or down to the moving deck?) is almost guaranteed not to work....