Ban Lifted on Hotel Guest 17 Years After Poop 'Tornado'

Nick Burchill allowed back at BC's Fairmont Empress after a seagull fracas in his room
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 3, 2018 9:30 AM CDT
Hotel Guest Finally Forgiven for Poop, Pepperoni 'Tornado'
This 2008 photo shows the Fairmont Empress Hotel in downtown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.   (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Deddeda Stemler)

A Canadian man barred from a British Columbia hotel for 17 years has successfully reversed his lifetime ban with "a pound of Brothers TNT Pepperoni as a peace offering." To understand the significance of that gift, it's necessary to know the truly insane story of how Nick Burchill got banned in the first place. It seems the Nova Scotia native brought a suitcase filled with Halifax's coveted Brothers TNT Pepperoni to Victoria's Fairmont Empress hotel during a business trip in April 2001. He'd planned to share the meat with his BC friends, per the CBC. But as there was no fridge in his room, Burchill put the pepperoni next to an open window to be cooled by the breeze and left. Returning hours later, he tells the Times Colonist he found "a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks, and fairly large birds whipping around the room."

Burchill says he eventually chased 30 to 40 seagulls out of the fourth-floor window, dropping a towel and his shoe in the process. After retrieving the shoe, he tried to dry it with a hairdryer, which fell into a sink of water, knocking out power, per the Times Colonist. That's when he contacted hotel staff, who sent a woman to the room to clean. "I still remember the look on her face when she opened the door," Burchill tells the CBC. He wasn't surprised when his employer later received a letter saying he wasn't allowed to return to the hotel. But "I didn't like the feeling of being banned from somewhere," says Burchill. During a trip back to Victoria over Easter weekend, therefore, "I just apologized. I was forgiven," he says. A hotel rep backs up Burchill's story, per HuffPost. "It's a really funny story to tell 17 years later," she says. (Dude, what's up with Canada's birds?)

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