{"id":328201,"date":"2025-12-03T15:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328201\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:16:08","slug":"drunken-raccoon-makes-a-mess-passes-out-in-liquor-store-bathroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328201\/","title":{"rendered":"Drunken raccoon makes a mess, passes out in liquor store bathroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASHLAND, Va. (AP) \u2014 The masked burglar broke into the closed Virginia liquor store early on Saturday and hit the bottom shelf, where the scotch and whisky were stored. The bandit was something of a nocturnal menace: bottles were smashed, a ceiling tile collapsed and alcohol pooled on the floor.<\/p>\n

The suspect acted like an animal because, in fact, he\u2019s a raccoon.<\/p>\n

On Saturday morning, an employee at the Ashland, Virginia<\/a>-area liquor store found the trash panda passed out on the bathroom floor at the end of his drunken escapade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally like raccoons,\u201d said Samantha Martin, an officer who works at the local animal control. \u201cThey are funny little critters. He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VirginiaIn this photo provided by Samantha Martin, broken bottles are seen after a raccoon entered a liquor store on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, in Ashland, Va. (Samantha Martin\/Hanover County Protection via AP)AP<\/p>\n

Martin said she took the raccoon back to the animal shelter, though she had her fair share of giggles along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother day in the life of an animal control officer, I guess,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter<\/a> commended Martin for handling the break-in, and confirmed the raccoon had sobered up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHLAND, Va. (AP) \u2014 The masked burglar broke into the closed Virginia liquor store early on Saturday and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-328201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}