‘You never wake up to good news at 4am’ – Rotorua liquor store crashed for second time in a week

The Ramraiders hit a Rotorua liquor store for the second time in a week.

“You never get good news at 4 a.m.,” said Andrei Watson, store manager of Rotorua Central Super Liquor, who was woken by a call from Rotorua police on Wednesday.

“It was just a mess, glass everywhere, half of the front frame was gone, but the grills kept them from getting inside, so they didn’t run away with anything.”

However, Watson said the damage caused would cost thousands of dollars to repair.

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“It will be at least a few thousand for the glass, plus all the beer that was spilled by the car when they entered the windows.

“We wrote off a lot of stock,” he said.

Last Wednesday, thousands of dollars worth of spirits and RTDs were stolen from the same store in a ram raid involving two cars that also destroyed the store’s facade.

The store is less than a mile from Rotorua Police Station, but it is understood the two sets of ramraiders were not captured.

CCTV footage of both incidents has been handed over to police.

“When I got the call from the police I thought they were joking,” Watson said.

“It’s almost exactly the same time on the same day as it happened a week ago.

“But, we were open as usual, we’ve been cleaning up all morning and the builders are there, so we were open at 9am.

“For any business, it all adds up, the framing, the new glass, the new security measures,” Watson said.

Rotorua’s Fenton Street has been the subject of national attention since the start of the pandemic due to rising crime rates in and around the city’s ‘Motel Mile’, where some motels were used for accommodation urgently by the Department of Social Development.

The liquor store is across the street from a motel used as emergency accommodation that caught fire two weeks ago. It was the fourth fire at an emergency accommodation motel on Fenton St in the past seven months.