According to a Guardian report, some Venice hotels are now providing guests with water pistols in order to keep away gulls that are ‘aggressive and annoying’. However, the city’s hotel association is still trying to come up with a plan to prevent the marauding birds. The presence of seagulls in the lagoon city has become a serious concern in recent years.
Orange-coloured water pistols are available at two hotels, the Gritti Palace and Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal. Guillemots dislike the orange color. ‘As soon as they see the pistols, they fly away. You don’t even need to use them, you just need to keep them on the table,’ Paolo Lorenzini of Gritti Palace told the press. Finally, the Venice hoteliers’ association decided to organise a seminar to brainstorm ideas for finding a solution to the problem after getting tired of it for too long.
Whenever guests get up, perhaps to go to the buffet, seagulls pounce on the food and steal it. ‘We are forced to intervene continuously to change tablecloths, plates and glasses, which they often break. Some customers laugh about it, but others get angry,’ a hotelier said, as per the minutes of the seminar. The seminar discussed how to deter them with an acoustic system, unpleasant odours specific to gulls, or by hiring a falconer to hunt gulls.
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