A Scottish sandwich shop is now offering, for an extra £1 fee, to insure its customers against losing their lunch to marauding seagulls that have become increasingly bold shoreline scavengers.
The Cheesy Toast Shop in St Andrews is adding the option after replacing many sandwiches for free and admitting defeat in their attempts to drive away the gulls, whose appetite for people’s lunches may be growing with the depletion of fish stocks in nearby waters.
The owners say that if they find they have profited on the insurance at the end of summer, they will donate the extra to local charities, and say they are operating on trust that customers are telling the truth about their losses.
They do have advice for the customers: avoid sandwich selfies. “People will come to take photos of our sandwiches, and the minute they hold a toastie up for a pic, all the seagulls dive bomb them. They really are a problem.”
