Coming from a seaside town I would have to agree with you. It is not safe to eat a bag of chips on the seafront as the gulls will swoop on you. Not too bad for an adult, but the kids have had chips taken out of their hands from the hungry gulls.
Not sure that I would want them destroyed, just ask the tourists to be more responsible.
When we first moved down with our cats, who could quite happily take down the London pidgeons with minimal effort, they tried it on with the local gulls. Never seen the cats back down from a fight until then. Some of the gulls were nearly twice their size, and the cats weren't small.
Having said that, an adult gull got trapped in nextdoors basement space for a few days over the weekend. The flapping and cries were pitiful and it became apparent that nextdoor weren't going to do anything about it, so Rob got out the ladder and pulled it out. It wasn't exactly grateful... but what do expect, it was terrified. Unfortunately in its bid to get away, it got clipped by a car ::), but managed to fly away.
