A man inserts a live snake through his nose and mouth during a performance
A man inserts a live snake through his nose and mouth during a performance at an amusement park to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 7-day national day holiday, in Jinhua, Zhejiang province October 1, 2014. Picture taken October 1, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

A customer in Canada threw a live snake over the counter after his sandwich order had turned out to be unsatisfactory. The incident took place at a Tim Hortons counter in Saskatoon on Monday.

According to the restaurant staff, two men started arguing with one of the employees over the preparation of the sandwiches as they demanded diced onions in theirs. When the argument continued and reached to a higher level, one of the men took a live snake from his friend's pocket and threw it over the counter. Staff at the restaurant, located in the 600-block of 22nd Street West, ran away from the store. Nobody was left injured while officers located the snake and found it not to be poisonous. According to Saskatoon Police spokesperson Alyson Edwards, it was a "very bizarre" and "very different" incident for the employees. Global News reported that it was also "very frightening" for them as they were not aware if the snake was poisonous or not. He said that there was quite a lot of screaming going on as the workers were very frightened.

Both the men, now charged for causing a disturbance, are 20-year-old. Their argument was about the onions which the restaurant preferred not to dice. The non-venomous snake which created such a chaos at the restaurant was captured by the officers who named it as "Outlaw." The snake is going to be released into the wild but not before the spring arrives. A picture of "Outlaw" was shared on the internet with a note that the snake did not harm anyone during the incident. Nor was the snake harmed while the incident took place. The photo shows it to be a colourful species with fluorescent green and orange stripes mixed with black lines.

When Saskatoon Police shared Outlaw's photo on Twitter, there were different kind of reactions. Todd (‏@U3O8man) thought "double double" should have been a more appropriate name for the snake. Jennifer Davis (‏@JenniDavis91) wanted to know if the men could be charged for animal cruelty as snakes, like puppies and kittens, had feelings. Saskatoon Police (‏@SaskatoonPolice) replied to the query and said that it had been left to attending officers' discretion if the men could be charged whereas there were many factors going into the decision of the kind of charges would be laid against them.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au