Trump's Scottish Resort Banned The Country's Favorite Soda & Pissed Everyone Off

In a move that some have likened to an act of war on Scotland, President Trump's Scottish golf course has banned Irn-Bru, a wildly popular soft drink in the country, out of fear that the bright orange drink will stain the luxury golf course's carpets. According to The Scotsman, the ban was discovered when a guest attempted to order Irn-Bru, which is more popular in Scotland than Coca-Cola, during an event, but was refused by hotel staff.

The Scotsman reports that Trump Turnberry recently underwent a multi-million dollar renovation and refurbishment, and that apparently involved spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on carpet replacements. Irn-Bru, sometimes referred to as Scotland's "other national drink" (the first being Scotch), is notorious for creating difficult-to-remove stains.

“We can’t have [Irn-Bru] staining when to replace the ballroom carpet would be £500,000 pounds ($678,800) alone,” Trump Turnberry General Manager Ralph Porciani told the Ayrshire Post. “We have villas here with Irn-Bru stains in the carpets, which I can’t let.”

Many were not pleased with the decision. One Twitter user wrote that the Irn-Bru ban is "effectively a declaration of war on Scotland," while another noted the irony of "the orange man ban[ning] the orange drink at Turnberry."

"Trump justified the decision based on the fact Irn Bru could stain the carpets, raising real questions over how he can be allowed inside with that degree of fake tan," joked Scottish journalist Liam Kirkaldy.

It's not surprising that Scots are upset about this, as according to ABC 15, roughly 20 cans of Irn-Bru are sold every second. Fans of the sweet drink already faced a significant setback in April, when a new sugar tax in Great Britain resulted in Irn-Bru's manufacturer cutting the drink's sugar content in half. According to NPR, this led to hoarding, petitions, and general consternation among Irn-Bru drinkers in the U.K..

This is far from the first time that Trump's management of a golf course in Scotland has angered locals. In the lead-up to the opening of his Aberdeenshire golf course in 2012, for instance, Trump claimed that the property would create 6,000 jobs, according to the Independent; as of 2016, however, only 150 people were employed at the course. He also promised an eight-story, 450-room luxury hotel at the course that was never built, according to the New York Times.

Additionally, several residents who live on the outskirts of the golf course told the Times that when they refused Trump's request to sell their homes, Trump had construction workers build a wall blocking their view of the sea — and then charged them for it. When two others locals, Michael Forbes and his elderly mother Molly, refused to sell their home to make way for the golf course, Trump publicly called the home "slum-like and disgusting," and said that Forbes "lives like a pig," according to the BBC.

That's not all. When developers in Scotland began weighing plans to install powerful offshore wind turbines near that same golf course in 2012, Trump filed a legal challenge, arguing that they would ruin the view from the course.

“Don't destroy your coastlines and your countryside with the monstrous turbines," Trump wrote Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, according to the Independent. "Your country will become a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid."

Trump lost that legal battle, however. The Scottish government approved the development in 2015, and in April, the first of several wind turbines went up off the coast of his Aberdeenshire course. According to the Independent, it's the most powerful wind turbine in the world, capable of powering one home in the U.K. with just one spin.

Trump's unpopularity in Scotland is so legendary that there's an entire documentary, You've Been Trumped, on the topic. Given that Irn-Bru is now banned from the Turnberry course, that trend probably isn't going to reverse itself any time soon.