Angry rampage at Buy Rite Liquor astounds owner, destroys $1,600 in booze

NYACK — Chris Giacopelli isn't one to cry over spilled milk.

Or even spilled Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch at $180 a bottle.

But he is still fuming over an unruly customer who burst into his liquor store last week, caused a ruckus and then knocked dozens of bottles of booze off the shelves — including four bottles of the Johnnie Blue, whose loss could bring tears to Scotch lovers everywhere.

"Twenty-five years in the business and I've never seen anything like it," he recalled Thursday, sitting in his office in the back of his shop. "Unbelieveable, just unbelievable."

Mahogany Morrow, 31, of Spring Valley, turned herself in to Clarkstown police Wednesday night, a week after the Feb. 23 incident. Investigators expect to charge her with a felony count of criminal mischief.

Morrow is accused of pulling up to Rite Buy Wine and Liquor in the Hub Shopping Center at 6:30 that night in the back of a taxi.

What happened next was captured on a surveillance tape.

Giacopelli said the clerk on duty was helping another customer. After just 40 seconds in the store, the woman from the taxi began complaining loudly that she wasn't being served fast enough.

The woman then asked to use the store's restroom.

When the clerk — who said she smelled alcohol on the woman's breath — refused, the woman turned to leave and, with her arm extended, knocked dozens of liquor bottles to the ground.

"She wrecked the place," Giacopelli said. "Made a huge mess."

The woman left the store without taking anything. Police tracked down the cabdriver, who told them that the woman asked to be taken to the Palisades Center mall. She said she worked at Dave & Busters there.

Giacopelli and his family were left to clean up after the rampage.
They estimated that the woman destroyed 51 bottles of liquor and wine worth a little more than $1,600.

And poor Johnnie Walker; she hit him particularly hard.

Besides the Blue Label, which is so rare that each bottle comes with its own serial number, she took out bottles of Black, Green and Gold label, all on the pricey side.
The incident left the store staff stunned, Giacopelli said. Even his golden retriever , Rex, was startled when he lapped up a bit of a boozy puddle, Giacopelli said.

"He didn't like it," he said.

Giacopelli wants his regular customers to know that the odd encounter with the enraged woman was an isolated incident.

"This is a very safe environment," he said. "We never have problems like this."
Giacopelli plans to file an insurance claim for the lost inventory and cleanup.
But he also hopes that, once the suspect is charged, prosecutors seek restitution for his loss.

"She should pay for what she did," he said. "It was totally uncalled for."