Mall, vape store damaged in ram-raids

Dunedin's first ram-raid in six years involved an allegedly stolen car ploughing its way through a centre city mall in its busiest time of the year.

Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, said police were alerted about 3.40am yesterday to a stolen vehicle being used to ram-raid the Golden Centre Mall in George St.

The incident was the first ram-raid to occur in Dunedin for some time, Snr Sgt Bond said.

A later smash and grab at a South Dunedin vape store was believed to be linked.

Snr Sgt Bond said a yellow Mazda Atenza was stolen from the Brockville area overnight on Tuesday.

The car was later seen on CCTV smashing through the glass doors of the Golden Centre Mall.

He said the driver of the vehicle drove around the mall’s concourse and attempted to ram into the Michael Hill Jeweller store in the neighbouring Meridian Mall. However, they were unsuccessful and drove back out of the Golden Centre Mall empty-handed.

The interior and exterior of the mall were damaged in the incident, Snr Sgt Bond said.

The vehicle was later dumped and a second vehicle was allegedly stolen.

Golden Centre manager Nina Rivett said the ram-raid was a disgusting act.

‘‘I think it’s actually horrifying from the point of view that there are lots of people that make their livelihoods here.

‘‘There are lots of people that feel that it’s a violation.

‘‘We are a safe city, we’re a safe environment and isolated incidents like this are just totally unacceptable.’’

Nothing had been stolen, and this was the first time something of this nature had happened at the mall, she said.

Everyone had ‘‘rallied’’ to get the mall back open as quickly as possible.

‘‘I haven’t really had the chance to speak to [retailers] yet, but they’re a really resilient crowd.’’

Snr Sgt Bond said about 4am, the second ram-raid happened at the Vapourium vape store in King Edward St, South Dunedin.

Multiple shelves of vapes were taken and the thieves drove off.

The raids were believed to be linked and youths were suspected to be the culprits, Snr Sgt Bond said.

‘‘Inquiries are ongoing to determine who’s responsible — forensics are there now reviewing the CCTV footage that is available in the central city and South Dunedin areas.

‘‘If anyone was out and about between 3 and 4am, or that timeframe in the central city or South Dunedin and saw anyone acting suspiciously, we would love to hear from them,’’ Snr Sgt Bond said.

Vapourium South Dunedin owner Dan Mladenov said it was not a nice 4am wakeup call to hear his store was being broken into.

He said the culprits had wiped two shelves of product clean and a majority of the stolen product were all one-use disposable vapes.

‘‘These new waves of kids, they want disposable vapes and disposable vapes only — promises to just ban them keep coming but they never do.’’

In the store, vape juice and reusable devices were largely unscathed during the smash and grab.

On a positive note, the staff could use the cleared shelves for a ‘‘bit of spring cleaning’’, he said.

Vapourium South Dunedin manager Hamish Archer said it was usually only ‘‘pencil-case friendly’’, one-use disposable vapes that were targeted in many of their past store burglaries at the South Dunedin and London St sites.

‘‘Of course, they go for the convenience devices that they can sell to the kids at schools, that their teenage customer base can slip into their pencil cases,’’ he said.

Cigarettes were stolen from a North Dunedin liquor store in an early morning ram-raid in 2018.