Venice hotels provide guests with orange-coloured water pistols to fight off gulls

To fend off 'aggressive and annoying' gulls, some hotels in Venice have started to provide guests with water pistols, said a Guardian report.

This comes as a hotel association in the city is still hatching plans to achieve the goal of keeping the marauding birds away.

Over the last few years, the presence of seagulls has become a huge concern in the lagoon city.

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Two hotels, the Gritti Palace and Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal, have provided guests with orange-coloured water pistols. Gulls seem to dislike the colour.

“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 Lorenziniof Gritti Palacetold the press.

As Venice hoteliers’ association seems to have had enough, it finally organised a seminar to brainstorm ideas for finding a solution to the problem.

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“As soon as guests get up, perhaps to go to the buffet, seagulls pounce on the food and take it away. 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 solutions discussed in the seminar include deterring them with a special acoustic system or unpleasant odours specific to gulls, hiring a falconer to hunt the gulls, etc.

(With inputs from agencies)