Bruges pub introduces beer glass alarm system
Bruges landlord Philip Maes was so fed up with his thieving customers that he has decided to equip all his beer glasses with a special alarm system.
Publican Philip Maes (what's in a name?) suspects that it is above all tourists in search of a cheap souvenir who are purloining many of the distinctive beer glasses from his pub. Philip is now equipping no fewer than 3,000 glasses with the alarm system. Venture outside with your glass in hand and the alarm will go off.
Punters who take home a beer glass from the pub are a widespread and pretty banal problem across Flanders. The landlord of The Beerwall pub in Bruges is more determined than most to stamp out this social ill. Next door he runs a shop selling beer glasses and he would much rather punters made a purchase there than stealing!