Dozens of Amsterdam cafes, bakers and restaurants continue to have a cat to keep down the mice population even though it is banned by law, the Parool reported at the weekend.

The companies are happy to take the risk because they say cats are a much more efficient way to keeping mice under control, and that using poison also has health and hygiene risks.

‘We’ve tried poison but then we end up with dead mice which attract flies,’ one cheese shop worker told the paper.

Food safety inspectors told the Parool they will not turn a blind eye to companies keeping cats and say firms must deal with official pest control companies if they have a problem with mice.

Poison

Last week they told the owners of the De Pasteibakkerij sausage and pie makers that they had to get rid of their cat Hannes which has kept down the mice population in their factory for years.

‘I know enough people with experience of these companies and the mice always come back,’ owner Diny Schouten told the Parool. ‘Then we won’t just have live mice in the shop but dead ones and poison.’

Hannes is banned from areas where and when food is being prepared, Schouten points out.

It is not clear how the inspectors’ hard line can be reconciled with the Amsterdam cat cafe, Kopjes, where people can go for coffee and to stroke a cat and which opened earlier this year.