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LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n‘Crossword bandit’: Alleged dine-and-dasher at Lee Co. restaurants also faces DUI while riding bike<\/p>\n
LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n
A man dubbed the “crossword bandit” has been arrested by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office after they say he left a local restaurant without paying his tab. <\/p>\n
Restaurants across Lee County say he’s done this before, often while leaving behind a crossword puzzle book.<\/p>\n
Employees say the man ordered $47 worth of beers at the British Open Pub in Bonita Springs, sat with his crossword puzzle, then got up to use the restroom and never returned to settle his bill. <\/p>\n
Shawn Philbin, a bartender who served the man four beers at the pub, said this type of incident was unprecedented at the establishment. <\/p>\n
“I’m surprised; this has never happened to me before here. It’s a pretty local spot, and, you know, not a big place, so I just assumed he was coming back, but after 15 minutes, I realized he was not,” Philbin said. <\/p>\n
This is not the first time the man has allegedly done this. Gulf Coast News visited three other restaurants in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, where owners confirmed off-camera that the same man had skipped out on tabs at their establishments. <\/p>\n
“It comes out of the business’s pocket at the end of the day, and we’re not here to lose money; we’re here to make money,” Philbin said. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, deputies arrested the man, later identified as Ronald Wladich, after he reportedly left without paying at Ron Dao’s Pizzeria.<\/p>\n
An arrest report says that deputies were called there after employees saw him leave without paying his bill. Wladich was reportedly seen leaving the restaurant and walking toward a bicycle before getting on it and riding off.<\/p>\n
Deputies made contact with Wladich and say they noted a strong scent of alcohol emanating from his mouth when he was talking. He was detained.<\/p>\n
The report says that Wladich refused any form of sobriety test and refused a breathalyzer sample.<\/p>\n
Wladich faces charges of defrauding a food operator or lodging accommodation and DUI while riding a bicycle.<\/p>\n
DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Crossword bandit’: Alleged dine-and-dasher at Lee Co. restaurants also faces DUI while riding bike LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1593,1666,165209,11178,165204,209,211,210,165201,165203,165206,165216,39145,3154,2344,104,164397,897,4329,213,5156,356,165211,66669,2391,2159,102706,165212,110886,165207,165210,687,165205,165215,165208,165202,1521,165214,165213,1284,221],"class_list":["post-417340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bars","tag-beer","tag-beer-tab","tag-bonita-springs","tag-british-open-pub","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-crossword","tag-crossword-bandit","tag-crossword-puzzle","tag-crossword-puzzle-book","tag-detained","tag-dine-and-dash","tag-download","tag-entertainment","tag-establishment","tag-fort-myers","tag-gulf-coast-news","tag-late-news","tag-lcso","tag-lee-county","tag-lee-county-restaurants","tag-local-restaurants","tag-man","tag-money","tag-pizzeria","tag-press-charges","tag-puzzle","tag-restaurant-tabs","tag-restaurant-theft","tag-restaurants","tag-ron-daos-pizzeria","tag-shawn-philbin","tag-skipped-tabs","tag-skipping-on-tabs","tag-southwest-florida","tag-tab","tag-tab-skipping","tag-thursday","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}