Conflict between customers and management at Tesco, Hornsea over ginger tabby who likes to visit the store

Op-ed: Lincoln is a ginger tabby indoor/outdoor cat who likes to wander quite a long way by the look of it from his home and in particular he likes to spend some time at the local Tesco in Hornsea, North Yorkshire.

He likes to rest on the compost by the front door and watch the comings and goings. He also likes to sit on the store's wheelchairs and also watch the comings and goings there as people collect their trolleys and return them.

Lincoln has become a feature at the store and the customers like to see him. He's a calming presence. He makes them smile. He adds a bit of soul among the fruit and veg.

Lincoln resting and watching on the compost bags as they are nice and comfy. Image: Facebook.

But the management are being a little bit narrowminded although I understand their position. They don't want Lincoln there and so they're going to gently encourage him not to come into the store. At least they are going to be gentle.

In response to this upsetting news, some customers have said that they are no longer going to return to the store. They will take their business elsewhere. And now as you can see, Lincoln is in the news, in news media outlets on the Internet and this will probably put a bit of pressure on management to change their point of view.

Firstly, I can't see any reason why they should get rid of Lincoln. What's he doing that upsets them? Apparently, they think it unhealthy to have a cat sitting on the compost bags but how can that be unhealthy? He's nowhere near the food. In any case, domestic cats are no worse a hazard to human health than other humans!

This is a misconception: the belief that domestic cats and dogs are disease carriers and are going to spread disease to all people. I think that if you did a bit of research on this you would find that humans give humans more diseases than cats give humans diseases. The same would apply to dogs.

That's really because nearly all diseases are not zoonotic. Most feline diseases stay in the cat world and they cannot jump across to the human world. There are some which can such as toxoplasmosis and Covid can also transmit both ways and bird flu too but the cat version of the common cold cannot affect people. Nor can cat flu and nor can a pile of other feline diseases affect people. So I don't know where this fear of cats carrying diseases comes from.

I think it is very unfortunate and a misplaced thought. I would hope that the management reconsider but if they don't, they're going to losing customers.

RELATED: Bodega cats. These are American corner shop cats. Lincoln is a shop cat and his presence should be embraced by a more enlightened management.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.