A Wisconsin man was arrested Wednesday after he spent the night drinking beer and malt beverages in a convenience store cooler.
Jeremy Van Ert, 38, stopped into a Kwik Trip convenience store in Marshfield, Wisconsin to buy beer just before midnight on Tuesday evening. When he went into the store's cooler to grab the beverages, he says the cooler door locked behind him.
Believing he was locked in the cooler for the night, Van Ert decided to make the most of his situation. He reportedly drank three cans of Four Loko and an 18-ounce can of beer.
However, police say that the Kwik Trip is open 24 hours a day, and that Van Ert just needed to knock on the cooler's glass door to get the attention of an attendant.
A customer finally found Van Ert in the beer cooler at 5:50 a.m. — six hours after Van Ert first arrived at the Kwik Trip. Employees opened the door and Van Ert left without paying for his drinks and the three 30-packs of beer he damaged after toppling a stack.
Van Ert was charged with retail theft and was later picked up and arrested on a probation hold.
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
