Fighting broke out on the streets of Oslo on Wednesday, as hundreds of mostly young people gathered outside a new fast food restaurant promising free kebabs to its first customers.

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Police said a number of people were lucky not to have been crushed when they were pushed to the ground in a stampede. Hungry Oslo dwellers assembled in front of the new Bislett Kebab House outlet in Prinsdal long before the advertised 5pm opening time, newspaper Dagbladet reports.

“They were planning to hand out free kebabs, but at 4.30pm we received reports of a chaotic situation. There were huge amounts of people arguing, yelling and fighting in the queue, with cars spread out all over the road,” Even Gjørstad of Oslo police told the paper.

Police said they had little option but to tell the restaurant’s owners to shut up shop for the evening since they were unable to control their unruly clientele.

Exasperated at the levels to which people would sink for a few morsels of meaty goodness, Gjørstad said he had never before come across anything quite like Wednesday’s scenes.

“What does a kebab cost? Maybe 60 kroner ($10)? I think it’s slightly excessive to fight over that.”

But with a free soft drink also thrown into the mix, plenty of ravenous punters clearly disagreed.

An employee at the kebab house said the owners had agreed not to ahead with the opening offer after consulting with the police.

“When we were supposed to open at five o’clock there were almost a thousand people outside. They were pushing to get through. It wasn’t defensible with small children around,” Tariq Aziz told newspaper Aftenposten.