From toilet fixtures to ashtrays: why do so many of us steal from restaurants?

Metal straws have become a target for light-fingered diners. But how and why are people so quick to pinch things when eating out?

For a supposed genius eco-fix, reusable metal straws have multiple snags. Disability rights campaigners dislike them (less user-friendly than plastic), and now the New York Post reports they are being stolen from Manhattan cocktail bars and restaurants, something that is costing some of them $5,000 a year. It is news that will surprise no one in the hospitality game, where anything not nailed down disappears fast.

Glassware thefts cost UK pubs £186m annually, according to the equipment supplier Nisbets, with one in three of us guilty. In 2012, Jamie Oliver complained he was losing £30,000 a month, thanks to the loss of branded napkins (not so funny now, eh?), while staff at Yotam Ottolenghi’s Nopi and Rovi restaurants report a similar fashion in half-inching its bespoke, handmade napkins and napkin rings.