A Preston pub manager has spoken out after an increase in customers stealing glassware and decorations.
Ben Draycott from Plug and Taps in Lune Street told Blog Preston: “99.9 per cent of our customers are incredible and it’s a tiny minority of people that have no respect or morals.”
Ben was speaking after an earlier post on the city centre bar’s Facebook page in which he revealed that two prints had gone missing from a downstairs wall last week.
In the post Ben said: “I’ve tried to sleep on this and calm down but I’m still so angry and frustrated.
“On Tuesday morning there were three prints on that wall given to us by the amazing @daydream.thecreator but by the weekend there was only one left. Two prints have been stolen in four days. They’ve been on that wall for a year. Why now?”
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Ben shared that increased amounts of glassware have been disappearing lately, and even the Halloween pumpkin had been taken.
The pub also had to fork out £250 to replace a window at the end of October after ‘some drunken idiot had run out of booze and tried to smash his way in’.
Ben continued: “The broken window cost money to replace and it obviously upset us, but I understand the reasoning of a drunk who has no booze left.
“What I don’t understand is the people who come into the bar and steal our stuff whilst looking us in the eye and acting like good people.
“We try to make the pub look nice with pictures and decorations, we buy nice glasses for you to drink from – and people are stealing these things.”
Ben is urging the thieves to return the stolen goods.
“If the prints or glasses are returned, either anonymously or you come apologise face to face, then we draw a line under it and move on,” he said.