Two vehicles used in early morning liquor store ram raid
Thousands of dollars worth of spirits and RTDs were stolen from a Rotorua liquor store in a ram raid that also wrecked the shop frontage.
Police were called to Rotorua Central Super Liquor on Fenton St, less than 1km from the Rotorua Police Station, about 4.30am yesterday.
According to the store’s operations manager James Magatogia, CCTV footage showed two vehicles arrive in the early hours of yesterday morning and at least three people enter the store.
Magatogia said the offenders stole thousands of dollars worth of stock, including boxes of Vodka Cruisers and bottles of spirits displayed behind the counter.
‘‘They pulled up in two vehicles – a grey Nissan Tiida and a ute with a canopy on it.’’
The Nissan was backed through the shop doors, he said, and three people jumped out of the vehicles and started loading the ute with alcohol.
‘‘They were only in there for a couple of minutes. They left the Tiida in the carpark and left in the ute.
‘‘Apparently the Tiida was stolen from somewhere in Hamilton.’’
Magatogia said the store’s roller doors would need to be replaced, along with its glass sliding doors, but ‘‘we’ll be open again this afternoon’’.
He said staff would spend the morning cleaning up the mess and restocking shelves.
According to a police statement, no offenders had been caught at this stage and the Rotorua CIB were investigating the raid.
Rotorua’s Fenton St has been the subject of national attention since the start of the pandemic due to rising crime rates on and around the city’s ‘‘Motel Mile’’ where some motels were being used for emergency accommodation by the Ministry of Social Development.
The liquor store is across the road from a motel used for emergency accommodation that caught fire on the weekend. It was the fourth fire at an emergency accommodation motel on Fenton St in the last seven months.
Magatogia said that, prior to yesterday’s ram raid, four large windows in the building had been smashed at different times and grills had been installed.