Stolen Patio Table

The first item has been stolen from our new outdoor patio. It was only a matter of time, for some reason people feel obligated to take your belongings when you are a bar owner. I'm not sure why, but they feel that they have the right to steal just about everything and anything they can and see no reason why they should not be allowed to do so. Such a frustrating phenomena.

This is how it went down. Saturday night/Sunday Morning... a group of guys came in at 3:50 am.

One of the guys, has been kicked in the past and was not allowed to enter. He promptly makes a fuss and attempts to get both my bartender and the guy we have checking IDs to come fight him in the parking lot. (both employees are in their late 40s, the guy was in his mid 20s)

While he's making this fuss, one guy reaches over the bar to steal a bottle of well vodka. Some of the other patrons at the bar grab his hand and bottle as he does, so he never actually got anything. My bartender missed this because she was tending to the ruckus out front.

After getting caught, the guy then walks out onto our front patio and watches the nonsense for a few minutes then walks to where his friends are sitting.

After the fiasco in the parking lot ends, the bartender and door guy go back inside. At which point the guy who tried to steal the bottle who is now sitting on the front patio with other friends, turns around and pisses on one of our tables out there. (about 4:15am)

Ten minutes later, the door guy comes back out and kicks everyone out, and makes the people leave the patio.

All the guys who came in at 3:50 walk away down the parking lot at 4:25am, and the door man goes inside. Then once reaching the end of the parking lot, the individual who attempted to steal the bottle hides behind a bush and waits for the two remaining employees to stop looking outside at them leaving. At which point, he scurries along the fence line in the edge of the camera view, runs on to the patio, grabs a patio table and carries it out of the parking lot.

Last night I was at the bar until midnight watching two days worth of tapes until i found where the table was stolen. I downloaded the video to CD and it has been delivered to the police department today. The guy was obviously a local guy, being that he was walking around the village that night and the bartender said they have seen them before.

Needless to say, I will be pressing as many charges as possible against this kid.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think we have a few doozies. i.e. Attempted burglary, indecent exposure, public urination, destruction to property and first degree burglary.

Just some of the joys of being a bar owner.

Now I will get a chance to go to court again! Woohoo! We normally don't have to us an attorney for situations such as these though, unless the culprits fight the allegations. But its hard for those individuals to fight the allegations when there is visual evidence of them doing it.