{"id":75863,"date":"2026-01-01T23:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/75863\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:30:10","slug":"stolen-bmw-freezes-solid-in-erie-county-restaurant-parking-lot-police-blotters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/75863\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen BMW freezes solid in Erie County restaurant parking lot | Police Blotters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An abandoned BMW has created quite a scene in Hamburg this week.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the car was found in the parking lot of Hoak\u2019s Lakeshore Restaurant \u2014 which overlooks Lake Erie in Erie County\u2014 with all of its windows down. According to 7 News WKBW, police confirmed the car had been stolen out of Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>The intense winter storms did not go easy on the sedan. Erie\u2019s wind and waves battered the luxury car, causing it to freeze solid. Both the car\u2019s interior and exterior became encased in ice.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the car remained in the parking lot in the same condition. Police indicated to WKBW, who filmed live at the scene, that the owner had been notified and was working to have their car towed.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, the frozen car became a tourist destination as locals stopped by to witness the raw power of Lake Erie\u2019s winds.<\/p>\n<p>One curious onlooker, Justin Ryther of Orchard Park, told the outlet, \u201cIt\u2019s pretty crazy to see in person, I\u2019ll tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamburg resident Steven Mitchell called it \u201cone of the most interesting things I\u2019ve seen in quite a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Kevin Hoak, co-owner of the restaurant, didn\u2019t seem too starstruck by the vehicle\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not talked to police, but I know they are on it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s Buffalo; people just come in and want to take pictures in front of it and whatnot&#8230; It\u2019s kind of become a destination. Hopefully, they come in for a fish fry as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is the second time a car has completely frozen in Hoak\u2019s parking lot in the last decade. In January 2016, images of a different frozen car outside the family restaurant went viral, earning the nickname \u201cIce Car.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, there was no suspicious activity involved in that case. The owner, Justin Yellen, told WKBW at the time, \u201cIt had to happen to me; I\u2019m that type of guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An abandoned BMW has created quite a scene in Hamburg this week. On Monday, the car was found&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[31,136,138,137,39057,22305,7255,295],"class_list":{"0":"post-75863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-erie","10":"tag-erie-headlines","11":"tag-erie-news","12":"tag-police-blotters","13":"tag-st-lawrence","14":"tag-state-news","15":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}