It’s a slow news day today. You can always feel them in the air — tumbleweeds roll through editorial meetings and bleary-eyed reporters stare at their shoes and mumble “Uhm, what about… mmm, nah, got nothing.” Today’s Crikey will still be its usual stellar self, of course — we aren’t so married to the news cycle to provide our sparkling and insightful analysis — but when not too much is going on in the world, journalistic Spidey senses collectively fail to tingle for hacks across the country and we all sigh as we reach for the third, fourth, fifth coffee before midday.
Anyway, the point is: it’s a bit quiet on the western front. And that’s when stories like this get a lot of traction:
A mother of four is facing up to five years in a Thai prison after allegedly stealing a bar mat from an Aussie-theme bar in Phuket.
…
In a statutory declaration to Victoria Police, Ms Smoel’s friends said they had played a “silly joke” on Ms Smoel that had backfired.
“We would like to apologise for any harm, inconvenience or any lack of respect on our behalf. This was truly not our intention.
“We were all out drinking and became intoxicated. We put the bar mat into Annice’s handbag and she was unaware that we were playing a joke on her.”
Like many young(ish) people, I spent several years tending bars when I was studying, and truly there are few places better for observing the human condition. One thing that repeatedly confounded me was people’s attitude to property theft when inside a licensed venue.
You probably wouldn’t even consider pocketing your latte glass when enjoying a coffee and focaccia at a local cafe, but nabbing pint glasses is just a normal part of having a drink to many pub-goers. And not in a “Ooh, aren’t I cheeky? I might sneak this home with me, tee hee” kind of way, but usually a far more cavalier “I like this; I’ll take it” way. Plenty of the la-di-da “we only serve European beers hand-made by blind monks” venues around now require punters to leave a credit card or deposit while they sip from any of the really fancy glasses, because they know they wouldn’t last a night if they left it up to honesty and trust.
And it isn’t just glasses — I caught punters trying to casually walk off with barstools, paintings, ice buckets, beer taps, ice scoops, chalk-boards… if it’s housed near beer, for some reason it’s considered fair game to most people. I once stood and watched a woman stand on a chair and take down 24 novelty teaspoons that were on the pub’s wall one by one, casually putting each into her handbag. When I asked why she thought she could just steal our decor, she said quizzically at me like I was a total moron and replied: “Because… it’s a pub!”
And yes — bar mats (”bar runners” to those in the trade). Everyone wants a bar mat, imagining in their inebriated state that a manky piece of felt and rubber emblazoned with the VB logo will make the perfect addition to their kitchen bench. But, as any bartender will tell you, the joke’s on them: picking up a bar runner any time after about 6pm is a guaranteed way to give yourself a good shower of stale beer, vodka-and-raspberry runoff, peanut crumbs and God knows what else.
There is an art to removing bar mats without getting coated in the evening’s dregs, and if you’re trying to nab a crusty old beer-sponge from you local, trust me: you don’t know it.
Anyway, it’s hardly a crime that warrants five years in prison, but it is, y’know, a crime.
Pro tip: Bar mats actually come free from the distributors. If you really want one, just ask the publican. Nicking them isn’t annoying because it costs money, it’s annoying because not having enough runners means you’re constantly wiping down the bar. Ask politely and, when they get a new bunch in from a brewery, they’ll probably be happy to offload the old scungy ones onto you.
9 Comments
I was at a 21st once where the speeches praised the birthday girl for her advanced drunken thievery skills – she had once, unbelievably, walked off with a market umbrella from outside a venue.
Very well written indeed. I’m shocked rigid that a pub represents open slather to crooks. The woman climbing a chair to get the spoons. Un-bloody believable. I’m beginning to suspect there’s something badly wrong with Oz beer that it incites its devotees to indulge in every available bit of vice and crime.
Wouldn’t it be fun to put a mild electric jolt into the bar mats? Even better to electrify the private parts of the victims of football gang rapers. Hehehehehe
It is long overdue that all Australians travelling overseas should understand that what might be kind of tolerated at home is most definitely not tolerated in many other countries – and, in fact, nowhere in Asia. If you find it too hard to be on your best behaviour while you are there then you should not go.
And it doesn’t really help to make up a cock and bull story about how it was all a practical joke. It was petty thievery pure and simple and should be admitted as such.
I heard on the radio this morning that the person in question abused the policemen, including the chief of police and also tried to run away while they were apprehending her – that probably has a lot more to do with her treatment than the actual theft of the bar runner
Seasoned travelers know to avoid the youth of two nations. Israel and Australia. Israel because of their arrogant thugs masquerading as human beings, and Australia because of their loud drunken louts who make no pretense of being anything else but arrogant thugs.
Annice Smoel and her relentlessly thuggish husband, are so typical of the traveling Ocker. Whole areas of the world have suffered this ‘human crown of thorns’ and as a result most people of other countries avoid going to places like Bali and parts of Thailand. What have the residents of these places do to attract over-weight, drunken and lumpen clods with their thongs, and cans of beer. And cross-cut saw strine accents.
To see Oz men is Asia is dreadful. Invariably they have a tiny and slender Thai partner who trots along accompanied by her tall farang who has a hideously deformed beer-gut
hanging over his pants.
We behave like our convict forebears with huge chips on our shoulders.
Well there really is a simple reason people don’t steal stuff from cafes but do from pubs. They’re DRUNK. How did they get this way you ask? Could it be that the publican and their employees for all the rubbish about responsible service of alcohol continued to serve them alcohol til they were DRUNK.
There’s a reason you’re not supposed to drink and drive. Alcohol impairs amongst other things your ability to make rational decisions (it’s also has a well known ability to cause the user to overcome social inhibitions).
I don’t think people should steal stuff from pubs, but I also think that if you are going to serve alcohol and allow people to become drunk on your premises then you are probably going to suffer some adverse effects that your average coffee shop probably won’t experience.
And this: Mrs Smoel said “We were women on our own and we didn’t have a man here to talk to the police and deal a bribe… If we had, that would have been the end of it. We offered them money right from the start because we knew that’s how the system works here.” http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25510704-953,00.html
It pisses me off that the Australian Government was expected to help these drunken cashed up bogans at all. We should have left her there.
Isnt it a nice ending to the story, they are planning a holiday in Disneyland with the children to compensate for the suffering that their parents put them through – are they going to pay back all the costs of government representatives wasted time? There isnt enough money for the homeless or the sick – but enough to save the healthy from themselves.