Fed up with tourists who only come in to check out the scenery, the owners of Queviures Múrria, a centennial grocery store in Barcelona, have put up a sign announcing a 5 euro fee ($5.6) for coming in just to look.

Queviures Múrria has been in business since 1898 and is one of the most eye-catching locations in all of Barcelona. The vintage look of the store and the traditional design of the interior draw in hundreds of tourists every day, but the problem is that many of them aren’t actually interested in the products sold inside – all kinds of traditional Spanish cured sausages, cold cuts, cured cheeses, oils, wines, etc. According to one of the managers, many tourists enter the store without even muttering a simple ‘hello’, wander around taking pictures, and then simply leave without buying anything. So he decided to charge people for ‘just looking’ just to discourage them.

Toni Merino, one of the managers at Queviures Múrria said that the idea to charge tourists a fee for simply coming into the grocery store and looking around without buying anything started out as a joke, but as the staff and the regular patrons became increasingly inconvenienced by random tourists looking around, taking pictures, with absolutely no interest in the products on display, they decided to implement it.

Merino clarified that he and his partners have no interest in actually enforcing the fee, but they don’t really have to anymore. By posting a warning about the 5 euro fee in the shop window, they have managed to discourage most unwanted visitors. Now, most of the people who come inside actually end up buying something, and those who don’t prefer to contemplate the interior of the store through the shop window.

 

After photos of the 5-euro fee announcement in the window of Queviures Múrria went viral on social media earlier this month, the centennial Barcelona business faced some serious backlash, management was forced to explain the reasons for its implementation and clarify that they didn’t really plan on enforcing it. All in all, the measure appears to have worked out.