A TARPORLEY restaurant owner has been ordered to pull the plug on dummy parking tickets which left motorists hot under the collar.

Chris Baker, of Christiano’s restaurant at Tarporley, dished out 500 fake tickets to vehicles in Nantwich’s car parks with the message ‘Gotcha: free bottle of wine with a meal for two at Christiano’s hidden inside.”

Now Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council has stepped in and told him to stop or receive a £300 fine for littering.

A council spokesman said: “We were alerted to these tickets being placed on vehicles on Saturday and we took immediate action to have them removed because they bear a resemblance to those issued by police.

“This caused a lot of distress to residents and the borough council frowns upon this type of thing.”

Mr Baker admits numerous phone calls were made to the restaurant by irate drivers who he says ‘failed to see the funny side’ of his promotion.

He added: “This has just been a complete over-reaction to our new offer. I have literally had people telling me they have high blood pressure and need to go to the doctors because of this and that one man had an asthma attack.

“Some have said it was a good idea but I have had so many angry calls. We must have had about 150 calls and one man told me it was causing havoc in the town centre. It has just completely backfired.”

A dozen people took up the offer and visited the Italian restaurant on Sunday night. Mr Baker, who lives at Wettenhall, is delighted but he says he continues to receive calls from angry people: “It seems a lot of people just don’t have a sense of humour and have taken this completely the wrong way.”

It was the first time the restaurant, run by Mr Baker and his wife Dawn, had carried out the promotion.