\u201cI got to work in the morning and could smell the smell of diesel. They\u2019d taken the diesel cap off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a look under, and all the diesel had poured out of the tank. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d bored a hole in the bottom of the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said the shop\u2019s security cameras picked up the offender arriving in a vehicle at around 6.45am.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis road is really busy with people going past at that time in the morning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just hoping somebody\u2019s seen them. Like, there are lights in front of the shop, so the lights would be shining on their vehicle as well, so they\u2019ve been pretty brazen to have a go at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said most of the diesel was spilled onto the ground in the carpark.<\/p>\n
He said the truck\u2019s damaged fuel tank would have to be replaced, and he would likely have to seek insurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a real pain in the bum because now I\u2019ve got to get the tank fixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the inconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the farm side of the business, Wilson said one of the ways they were working to conserve fuel was by doing shorter trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut hey, it\u2019s sort of disappointing when someone dumps your fuel on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said a local mechanic experienced a similar theft recently, too, where the vehicle\u2019s fuel tank was drilled into.<\/p>\n
Police confirmed it received another report of a fuel theft from a vehicle at a premises on Great North Rd in Winton at 9.30pm on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnquiries are underway to determine if these incidents are connected,\u201d acting sergeant Daniel Munro of Otautau said.<\/p>\n
He said anyone with information could contact police on 105, quoting file number 260514\/1519.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people have information or footage that may assist with our enquiries, we would appreciate hearing from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said a hard line was being taken against fuel thefts and associated offences.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, we are not noticing a particular change in rural fuel theft, but this is a timely reminder for everyone, especially those in rural communities, to look at their security, especially around fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson and his wife, Kathy Wilson, had run the vegetable stall and farm shop for more than 35 years.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI got to work in the morning and could smell the smell of diesel. They\u2019d taken the diesel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2678,3594,78,84351,28205,111,43,139,69,3175,15488,13422,28206,66960,21980,33561],"class_list":["post-434206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-fuel","tag-hit","tag-in","tag-mechanic","tag-monique","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rural","tag-southland","tag-stall","tag-steele","tag-thieves","tag-vegetable","tag-workshop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}