Stolen lion back home

Order has been restored to Auckland’s Viaduct area after one of two $1000 stone lions guarding wellknown eatery Soul Bar was returned by a contrite young man on Tuesday.

The distinctive 80kg artefact outside the restaurant was stolen about 2am on March 25.

Soul Bar commercial manager Olivia Carter said she had been directed to the thief after he posted online several images and videos to Instagram of himself riding and licking the statue at his home.

“We obviously named him on our social media because we tried contacting him and he hadn’t got back to us. Then lots of people got back to us and said ‘I know him, he’s my friend’,” Carter said.

“He rang us yesterday, and said ‘Hi, I’ve got your lion, I’d like to return it’.

“He came at 7 o’clock, it wasn’t dark. There were plenty of people here. He was, I guess, just owning up to the fact that he was bringing it back,” Carter said.

“I wasn’t here personally but my colleague was and she said he was very sorry. He said ‘I was just drunk, it was one of those things. I felt bad about it on the weekend so I decided to bring it back.”

Carter said the response from patrons had been striking.

“Yesterday people were coming in for lunch and they were like ‘oh, we’ve seen a lion is missing’ so they were getting photos with the other lion.

Carter said the restaurant would not pursue charges A piece was chipped off the lion’s back in the theft but the man indicated he was happy to pay for repairs.

Carter said the lions won’t be stolen again. “We’ve got someone coming to secure them.”