Hotel lifts ban after seagulls ‘tornado’

Guest opened window — and chaos ensued

Nick Burchill will never forget the day he found dozens of seagulls feasting on pepperoni in his hotel room at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. He managed to get the birds out, but not before they trashed his room, covering it in feathers, feces and drool.

Despite successfully ridding his room of about 40 seagulls, Burchill received a strict punishment: the posh hotel banned him for life.

For 17 years, Burchill stayed away. He never stepped foot in the Empress again. That is, until this past weekend.

In an email posted to Facebook on Friday, Burchill implored the hotel to pardon him, or at least consider the last two decades as “time served.”

“I have matured and I admit responsibility for my actions. I come to you, hatin-hand to apologize for the damage I had indirectly come to cause and to ask you reconsider my lifetime ban,” he wrote.

His wish was granted when Ryan Rearden, a manager at Fairmont Empress, said he was welcome to stay in the hotel the next time he visits Victoria.

Although few staff remained from the time when Burchill’s room was trashed by pepperoni-loving seagulls, his story had been passed down as legend, and he described it in great detail in his email.

In April 2001, Burchill made the trek from Dartmouth, N.S., to Victoria, B.C., for a conference at the hotel. He had stuffed his suitcase full of Brothers Pepperoni, a delicacy sold exclusively in Nova Scotia, which he planned to distribute to his friends in the Navy.

But the airline lost his precious cargo and by the time it was found the pepperoni had spent several hours at room temperature. Burchill’s hotel room didn’t have a refrigerator, so he decided to cool the meat down in the next best way: he laid the packages on a table and left the window wide open.

He left the room for several hours and when he returned, he found mass chaos. At least 40 seagulls were feasting on the pepperoni.

“What I did not realize until then was that seagulls also drool,” he wrote.

The poor gulls were startled by Burchill’s sudden appearance and tried to leave the room in a mad hurry.

“The result was a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks and fairly large birds whipping around the room,” Burchill wrote. “The lamps were falling. The curtains were trashed.”

When he returned, his belongings had been moved to a much smaller room. He thought that would be the end of it, but his company received a letter from the Empress banning him for life.

“A ban that I have respected for almost 18 years,” he wrote. Hotel staff agreed that Burchill had done his penance.