Liquor thieves caught on CCTV with non-alcoholic wine

Bottle snatcher A sidesteps Bottle Snatcher B as they carry out their grab of non-alcoholic "wine".

I'm sorry but only a fool would run into a liquor store these days, swipe some bottles off the shelf, and run off.

As we saw this week, security camera photos have improved dramatically. Two men who walked into Cactus Liquor in Whangarei, snatched four bottles and ran off are now the leading candidates for the 2017 Dumb and Dumber award. And it's only May.

The quality of the images that the Cactus Liquor security camera was able to supply are priceless.

One of the men has his tongue hanging out, perhaps in anticipation of sampling the stolen alcohol.

Except that he swiped a bottle of non-alcoholic wine. Between the two men, three of the four bottles contained non-alcoholic wine, in fact.

The fourth was a bottle of Portugese fortified wine, popular with the, let's say, 40-plus age group.

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall of the BMW our two young men got into.

There would have been high fives and "Shot bros" all round as they celebrated their heist.
"Gonna parrr-tay tonight!"

I wonder if they actually realised they'd stolen non-alcoholic wines.

The worst case scenario would be they slugged back the fake vino, woke up without a hangover and now think their legendary status has been enhanced by how well they handle their booze.

I once swiped some booze off a liquor store shelf, and got the wrong alcohol.

But I was 16, and I'd walked into a liquor outlet for the first time in my life, walked straight down the back to avoid attracting attention, grabbed the first bottle of wine I saw, and minutes later was walking down the road to a party with a lukewarm bottle of Chardon.

And not just any bottle, a magnum.

I'd paid for it, by the way, standing as tall as I could in my jandals and saying "thanks" in the deepest voice I could muster.

We'd take turns buying alcohol when we were underage.

Once, the eldest took his turn dutifully, knowing damn well that as the shortest, he was about to be rejected.

In those situations, all eyes then went to the hairiest who would begrudgingly wander in and do the deed.

We'd all chip in - on once occasion I was short $10 and had to borrow some cash.

A few weeks later, I was in a carpark across the road from a nightclub known as Henry the Eighth. (It was a rather grand name - we called it "Henry's".)

In the car next to us was the guy I owed $10. I walked over and handed him the cash.
The mate drove off.

A flashlight shone in my face and a cop demanded to know who I was buying drugs off.
It took a few minutes to convince the cop I wasn't buying drugs.

During the interrogation, he asked me how old I was. I was 16, and we also established I was headed to Henry's. He didn't seem to mind and I went on my merry way.

So yes, we were dumb in our own unique way.

But we'd never contemplate stealing booze.

We had what we thought were crappy jobs that in hindsight gave us work ethics, a sense of the value of a dollar and respect for our employers.

Things that I doubt our caught-on-camera friends are yet to acquire, but, hopefully, one day will. And will then realise how stupid they were this week.