Flames are shown quickly erupting as the man walks away having doused the eatery in petrol after reacting in fury after being told they didn’t have the sauce he wanted
An angry customer has been caught on camera setting fire to cafe because staff were unable to provide him with mayonnaise for his sandwich.
Workers in the southern town of Los Palacios y Villafranca, on the outskirts of the Spanish city of Seville faced a harrowing ordeal after the man set light to the business when he was informed they had run out of the condiment – and that they didn’t have any ketchup, either. In response to the staff’s bombshell, CCTV shows the man left Las Postas Cafe-Bar, in Los Palacios y Villafranca and entered a petrol station just 160 feet away.
Shortly afterwards, he reappeared at the cafe with a 1.5-litre bottle filled with petrol and asked the waiters at the bar again if they had any sauce. After receiving the same answer, the man doused the bar with the fuel and set it on fire, according to footage released by the owners.
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A ball of flames erupted just moments after. Customers, including several young children and pensioners, ran out of the packed establishment while one of the waiters grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Thanks to the employee’s quick work and the fire brigade, thankfully, only material damage was reported. Minutes later, the man – who has a criminal record – was arrested by Guardia Civil officers in a nearby square and has been brought before the courts.
He required treatment at a nearby health centre due to burns on his left arm, caused by the explosion he had caused. The footage shows the suspect rushing out the door with his left hand alight. The man has reportedly caused damage between €7,000 (£6,055) to €9,000 (£7,784).
Jose Antonio Caballero, owner of Las Postas Cafe-Bar where the incident occurred, described it as “surreal”. He told Spanish press: “The bar didn’t have a kitchen and the sandwiches came ready-prepared and we didn’t have sauces.
“At that moment he walked to the garage opposite, returned to the bar with a bottle in his hand which we discovered afterwards had petrol inside, and asked the first waiter: ‘Are you sure there’s no mayonnaise?’ without giving him time to reply. There’s no explanation for what happened. It was awful.”
The suspect has only been identified as a 50-year-old from the neighbouring province of Cordoba, but has not been named.
It comes as the country battle extreme wildfires. Temperatures have soared to 45C in Spain, which has fuelled several blazes, including multiple across northwestern regions in recent days.
Soldiers continue to support firefighters across the Galicia and Extremadura regions in particular, both of which border Portugal. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says the deadly wildfires are proof that sustained, non-partisan effort is needed to tackle climate emergencies in Spain.
“We need to prepare and be better equipped with mechanisms and tools so that we can mitigate the effects of these climate emergencies when they happen,” Sánchez said. “The climate emergency is getting worse and more recurrent each year, and the effects of that emergency are accelerating each year.”
“For all the scientific predictions about how the climate emergency would apparently evolve, we’re seeing that it’s getting worse and hitting much harder each year, particularly across the Iberian peninsula. We need to readjust and recalibrate both our response and prevention capacities.”