When an elderly Vail man tried to gas up his minivan, he found smoked salmon stuffed into the filler nozzle. Vail police suspect the man's neighbor, and say it's part of an ongoing duplex neighbor dispute.

Special to the Daily

VAIL — There’s not a stuffed salmon recipe on Earth that asks you to stuff your salmon into your neighbor’s gas tank, but that’s what Vail Police found.

A Vail resident received a rap on the wrist after she allegedly stuffed smoked salmon into her neighbor’s gas tank.

Not canned salmon, as originally thought, but smoked salmon.

The neighbors live next to each other in a duplex and have been feuding for months over the usual neighbor stuff — parking, loud music and cable TV.

Vail Police got involved when an elderly man called to report that when he tried to gas up his minivan at the West Vail Shell, he removed his filler cap to discover that the nozzle was stuffed with when he thought was canned salmon.

Alas, no, it was smoked salmon, a Vail Police officer discovered when he was summoned to the scene of the crime.

A quick investigation uncovered a few facts:

• The man’s neighbor, living in the duplex next door, had served smoked salmon for dinner the night before.

• They had leftovers.

• She denied knowing anything about the smoked salmon stuffed into her neighbor’s gas tank and could not imagine how it got there.

• She allegedly plays her music really loudly during the day, as well as other non-neighborly behavior, which irritates the elderly couple next door.

• When the Vail Police officer asked her about it, she looked down and to her left twice during a 20-minute conversation with the officer.

• The officer explained that, under no uncertain terms, he did not believe that she had nothing to do with stuffing smoked salmon into her neighbor’s gas tank.

• She insisted to the officer that her neighbors were also being non-neighborly and had given Comcast permission to run a cable by digging up her yard. Comcast, the officer patiently explained, has a utility easement and doesn’t need anyone’s permission.

• The officer explained that she needed to let her elderly neighbors “live in peace.”

• No charges were filed, although a local mechanic charged the elderly couple $211 to clean up the salmon and their gas tank.

The officer also suggested that the elderly couple hire an attorney; they hired Sarah Baker.

“This incident may have high humor value, but it is one incident in a much larger story that is really disturbing to my client, the elderly neighbor to whom it is happening,” Baker said.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.