Over a week ago, I witnessed a dine and dash for the first time. Here they call it a “sinpa” as in sin pagar. I was with two friends of mine getting dinner, and towards the end of our meal, the owner/hostess of the restaurant sends me a message via LINE after becoming suspicious.
After I’ve convinced my friends to stay until they close at midnight (normal in Barcelona), we overhear the two guys complaining about the food. “Mira, hay pelo…”, they say. They say there were also bugs in another dish, after they’ve eaten at least half of the food already. It’s become clear that they were up to no good and had no intention of paying. Eventually, the chef comes out and offers to change a dish or just pay and leave without causing any more trouble. After some arguing ensues, the hostess says she’s going to call the police to come sort it out before anything escalates. Meanwhile, one of my friends is physically keeping distance between the elderly chef and these two customers. My other friend has sneaked outside to call the local police as well. One of them eventually decides he wants to walk out for a smoke. The other tries to follow immediately, but I tell him that one of them should obviously stay. As he trailed behind the first guy, I was forced to physically come behind him and the exit. A tiny bit of a struggle ensues between us where I have a somewhat firm grasp on his jacket. The other tries to pull his friend away before raising a nearby wooden pillar about to strike me, but never does it. His jacket eventually rips on the side and I was unable maintain my grip. I couldn’t stop either one of them without resorting to other more drastic methods (I’m unfamiliar with Spanish laws), and they fled.
The police arrive fashionably late, and we show them a photo where they’re in the background. However, as I suspected, the police couldn’t really do anything about it. It was at least 44 Euros of food. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, fortunately. I’m still shocked more than anything that people could do this to a family-owned restaurant. I regret not having a better photo of them…
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments 