Unfiltered Story #200598

I’ve been working at this store a while, and kind of recently we had a refit where a lot of stock was moved. Now, instead of being behind us at the counter, spirits are off to the left of the tills. We can still see them pretty well, but unfortunately we’ve had a couple instances of theft since the move. A guy enters in a large beige coat, which instantly strikes me as odd as I managed to walk to work in just my shirt. I keep an eye on him and surprise surprise, he heads straight for the spirits.
I keep my eye on him while serving, and a couple of the customers catch on to what I’m doing and don’t say anything. The guy takes a bottle of whiskey from the highest shelf, and immediately walks down to the end of the aisle where I can’t see him. Again, almost immediately he walks back up the aisle, bottle nowhere to be seen. I hit the bell at the till a few times to call over a manger.
I tell her what’s just happened, that either the guy in the beige coat has it in his coat, or he’s just left it on a shelf. She heads down the aisle and when she doesn’t find it, quickly goes to fetch the store manager. All the while I’m serving, acting like nothing is up when every customer in line knows what’s going on.
The guy goes to leave but is stopped by the store manager. She demands the bottle. He says he doesn’t have the bottle. She demands the bottle again. He still says he doesn’t have it, but spreads his arms defensively with his hands in his coat pockets. This basically shows off the bottle in the inside pocket of his coat. The store manager pulls it out of the pocket and tells him to get out and not come back.
I left the store about a month later to go to Uni, but as far as I’m aware he never came back.