French man fights noisy Spanish restaurant with coffin and tombstones

Michel Kessous, 69, has had enough of the noise emanating from a neighboring restaurant in Denia, Spain.

He decided to try some novel ideas to scare away the customers, including hanging a coffin on a scaffold outside the window of his home.

According to the 20 minutos newspaper, the L'Escoleta restaurant just behind Kessous' house recently opened an outdoor terrace. While before it was apparently only the loud extractor fan that irritated Kessous, now he also had to contend with patrons chatting out on the terrace until 2 a.m. and sometimes staff staying late and chatting until 4 a.m.  The noise bothers him despite the fact that his windows have double-glazing and it all just got to be too much.

First of all he placed some tombstones on his patio to give the customers a fright, but apparently this didn't work, so now he has erected the scaffolding, with a coffin hanging ominously in the air.

Juan Carlos Villar, owner of the restaurant said Monday, "We don't know what he's going to do next. Maybe he'll put skulls out," adding that he doesn't want to launch an official complaint as that would start a "war between neighbors."

He said that it is the responsibility of the town hall and that he doesn't want to get involved and just tells customers that he has an "odd neighbor."  However, he did say that all Kessous wants to do is to close his business down, meaning that nine families would be without jobs.

Meanwhile, another local resident said, "We don't understand why the town hall went over plans for minor renovations with a fine-toothed comb but now won't move a finger when a tomb is put out for everyone to see."

It seems the local town hall is working on the problem, however, and is still trying to establish whether the scaffolding used for hanging the coffin is actually a legal structure.

As for Kessous, all he wants is for the restaurant owner to meet with him to make some sort of plan to lessen the noise.