Man banned from hotel 17 years ago is finally allowed back
Guys. How much do you love sausages? Enough to be banned from a five-star hotel in the name of sausages?
Well 17 years ago, Nick Burchill experienced just that – a ban from a five-star hotel because of a suitcase full of pepperoni sausages.
Yes, we’re serious.
Burchill was staying at the Fairmont Empress in Victoria, Canada, and left his room window open to keep his pepperoni from going bad. Cue 40 sick seagulls ruining the hotel room, thus leading to the ban.
But now, he’s been allowed to return!
In a letter of apology, Burchill wrote that he was staying at the luxury hotel for a business meeting and had planned to send the sausages to his friends in the Navy, according to mirror.co.uk.
He left the window open to keep the pepperoni cool, only to come back from a stroll to find a flock of seagulls wrecking his hotel room in pursuit of the sausages.
We’ve all been there, right?
“I remember walking down the long hall and opening the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls in my room,” he recounted in a Facebook post.
“I didn’t have time to count, but there must have been 40 of them and they had been in my room, eating pepperoni for a long time. In case you were wondering, Brothers’ TNT Pepperoni does NASTY things to a seagull’s digestive system.
“As you would expect, the room was covered in seagull crap. What I did not realise until then was that seagulls also drool. Especially when they eat pepperoni.”
Sounds like a party to us. Obviously, the hotel staff were not impressed.
Upon entering his luxury room, Burchill found the curtains, lamps, and coffee tables completely trashed and ruined. The bed was also a mess, as was the floor. In a sea of frustration, Burchill threw a shoe at one of the seagulls.
But overall, he told CBC that none of the birds were harmed.
“One was just bouncing around on the windowsill and I was kind of losing my temper at this point, so I took off one of my shoes and I threw it in the direction of the seagull, and both the seagull and the shoe went out the window,” he said.
And as if the commotion wasn’t bad enough, the incident happened during the late afternoon, when the hotel was hosting high tea. When Burchill got back from retrieving his fallen shoe, someone from housekeeping had arrived and was none too pleased.
“I can still remember the look on the lady’s face when she opened the door,” he said. “I had absolutely no idea what to tell her, so I just said ‘I’m sorry’ and I went to dinner.”
After dinner, his belongings had been moved to another room, and after check-out, Burchill and his employer were told that they were no longer be welcome at the Fairmount Empress.
But after Nick wrote his open letter to hotel management, where he explains that he’s “matured” and “served his time” during the lengthy ban, director at the Empress, Ryan Rearden, reviewed his apology and lifted the ban.
And if that’s not a nice happy ending on hump day, we don’t know what is.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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A five star hotel can afford it and a ban for an honest mistake is silly. He honestly shouldn’t have apologized.