Town makes sure it isn’t free to gaze too long at George

Linger too long near George Clooney’s Italian villa in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the actor-director and his new bride and you might pay dearly.

The town of Laglio, where Clooney bought an 18th-century mansion with private dock on Lake Como a dozen years ago, has hiked fines for those who create “problems of public order” when gathering to gawk on the main road behind the villa or approach by boat closer than 100m offshore.

Mayor Roberto Pozzi said he signed ordinances last week introducing fines as stiff as €500, five times higher than before.

The twin ordinances — one to discourage land-based out-of-town gawkers, the other for boat-based voyeurs — run to September 30, covering the period when Clooney usually stays in Laglio, at the base of forested foothills stretching towards the Alps.

Clooney married London-based human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin last September in Venice.