Seagulls + Pepperoni = Lifetime Ban! I literally fell off my chair laughing when I read this morning about how a customer was by the a hotel in Vancouver, because seagulls raided his room and ate up all his pepperoni. It’s a hillarious comedy of errors, so read on…

Burchill’s story began with a good purpose. In 2001, he was visiting Victoria B.C.for a work event and he stayed at the historic Fairmont hotel, The Empress. The colleagues he was visiting requested him to bring along some Brothers pepperoni, a widely-requested local Halifax delicacy.

He did what all good men would do. He bought all the stock they had that night, and checked in a suitcase full of Brothers Pepperoni for his friends. The bag got mishandled, and arrived a day late in Victoria B.C.

Burchill shares in his Facebook post,

The bag reappeared the next day. I knew that the pepperoni would still be “good”. It had only been at room temperature for a short time. It would, however, be quite some time before I could turn it over to my friends. 

Just to be safe, I decided that I should keep it cool. 

My room was a nice, big, front-facing room on the fourth floor. It was well appointed, but it did not have a refrigerator. It was April, the air was chilly. An easy way to keep all of this food cool would be just to keep it next to an open window. I lifted one of the sashes and spread the packages of pepperoni out on the table and window sill. Then, I went for a walk…..for about 4 or 5 hours.

All was fine until then. However, when he came and opened the room door he saw almost 40 Seagulls savouring Pepperoni. Next Burchill discovered that pepperoni really doesn’t sit well with the Seagulls’ tummy and in no time the entire room was filled with guano (don’t look up the dictionary, it means shit!).

The birds were taken aback suddenly seeing a human in the room. So, they started to fly around looking for the escape route, trying to fly out from the small hole from where they had gotten in and crashed into things in the room.

Less composed seagulls are attempting to leave through the other CLOSED windows. The result was a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks and fairly large birds whipping around the room. The lamps were falling. The curtains were trashed. The coffee tray was just disgusting.

I waded through the birds and opened the remaining windows. Most of the gulls left immediately. One tried to re-enter the room to grab another piece of pepperoni and in my agitated state, I took off one of my shoes and threw it at him.

Both the Seagull and his shoe went out of the window. By now there was only one big gull left who was refusing to leave. So to get rid of it Burchill ran around the room chasing it and knocking off things. 

As I chased it, it ran around the room with a big hunk of pepperoni in its gob. 
In a moment of clarity, I grabbed a bath-towel and jumped it. It started to freak-out so I wrapped it in the towel and threw it out of the window.

His shoe and the towel wrapped Seagull fell on the hotel’s front lawn shocking a tourist group who were on their way to experience The Empress’ famous High Tea.

Burchill then realised that he needed to head out for a company dinner so he went out to find the second shoe.

The shoe was a mess. I took it back to the room. By this time, I had closed the windows and the air was becoming quite ripe with the smell of digested pepperoni and fish. 

Burchill then cleaned up the soiled shoe in the bathroom and tried to dry it with a hairdryer. In the meanwhile his phone rang and then there was the ultimate disaster; the hairdryer fell into a sink filled with water, short circuiting the power of the building.

“I don’t know how much of the hotel’s power I knocked out, but at that point, I decided I needed help,” Burchill said. He called up the front desk and requested assistance. When the lady from housekeeping arrived he had absolutely no idea what to tell her but just apologize and head out for the scheduled dinner.

While the hotel did not make a big deal about it and shifted Burchill to another room. They sent a letter to his company banning him from staying at the Fairmont Empress.

Burchill took to Facebook last week and asked the hotel for forgiveness and explained the entire fiasco that took place 17 years ago. He wrote,

I have matured and I admit responsibility for my actions. I come to you, hat-in-hand to apologise for the damage I had indirectly come to cause and to ask you reconsider my lifetime ban from the property. 
I hope that you will see fit to either grant me a pardon, or consider my 18 year away from the Empress as “time served”.

Tracey Drake, the Director of Public Relations, confirmed that this is a true story and said that the ban has been lifted off Burchill. The Fairmont Express also tweeted that the hotel was ready to welcome Burchill back with open arms.

We were as amused by Mr. Burchill’s letter as everyone else was. We look forward to welcoming him back again, and since our $60m restoration, he will be delighted to know that the rooms have modern amenities and air conditioning to keep his pepperoni cool. https://t.co/SmR506NNnE pic.twitter.com/waaaHjnvlx

— Fairmont Empress (@FairmontEmpress) April 3, 2018

Like they say, Shit Happens. No better way to avoid it, but to not indulge in too much Pepperoni. (Too Much Pepperoni, is that ever a thing?)