Caught on camera: Hanmer shop owner in flip-flops stops LCBO thief

‘I’m going to make sure that one day my kids tell their kids about the legend of the Hanmer mall,’ one commentator writes

Article content Over the weekend, Michael Strickland went viral. Strickland, who owns Strickly Nostalgia in the Hanmer Valley Shopping Centre, found himself in the position of unlikely hero after intervening in an attempted theft from the LCBO outlet in the mall. Recommended Videos Last Friday, Strickland was closing his shop for the day when he noticed trouble at the LCBO.

“I was talking to another business owner. As we were talking, I noticed someone was tucking in their shirt, putting their hood up, and then all of a sudden they pull the mask out. So I’m like, ‘I bet you the LCBO is about to get robbed.’

And he’s like, ‘you think so?’ And I said, 100 per cent,” Strickland said in an interview. “So then we started walking over there and by the time we got there, there’s two of them.”

Strickland confronted the thieves as they attempted to leave the store. “We saw them coming out and I just said, ‘no, give me the bag.’ I went to go take the bag and I’m trained in a way to restrain people, so I was just holding him slightly,” he said.

“I told him that if he kept pulling, he’d actually hurt himself, which he would have.” The video, posted on Strickly Nostalgia’s Facebook page (tinyurl.com/mrxww5zc), shows Strickland meeting one of two thieves as they exit the LCBO into the mall. Strickland grabs one bag of liquor and the assailant’s arms, and crosses them.

He said it is a technique he learned while bouncing and working in group homes with troubled adolescents. The goal was to avoid inflicting injury or being injured himself. “I didn’t want him to bang his head or anything like that,” Strickland told The Star.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I was just trying to make sure no one got hurt, or me.” Strickland, who stands 6-foot-6 with broad shoulders, can be heard asking the much smaller and shorter assailant repeatedly (and rhetorically), “What are you going to do to me, guy?”

Eventually, Strickland points the thief, whom he estimates was in his 20s, towards the mall door. The masked man exits. Strickland credits his pal, Josh, from Amaz’n binz in the mall, for the camera work and for staying close by his side throughout the interaction.

The assailant spilled one bag of liquor on the floor in front of the LCBO; however, Strickland managed to recover the second bag. Strickland, who conducted the recovery mission in flip-flops and a Tilley-style hat, has become something of a legend in the Valley. “I’m going to make sure that one day my kids tell their kids about the legend of the Hanmer mall.

Never mess with the guy in the flip flops,” wrote one commenter on Strickly Nostalgia. Another called Strickland the “Hanmer hero.” And another commented that “not all heroes wear capes.

Great job and a win for the good guys.” Strickland said he woke up Saturday morning to more than 60 notifications. The video has been viewed more than 340,000 times.

“I didn’t expect to wake up to such a thing going on,” he said, adding that the response from the community has been “non-stop people coming in and congratulating me, and saying thank you or stuff like that.” Strickland said he was trying to think “a couple of steps ahead” during the altercation. Relying on his past experiences, he said he “kind of knew what to watch out for — look at his eyes.

I didn’t ever remove his mask for a reason — I never wanted to get spit on.” The second assailant escaped the LCBO through an exit leading directly outside; however, it did not go well. Once outside, he tried to “rob some guy’s truck in the parking lot, and that didn’t go over well for him.

So then he lost all the booze. The truck owner wasn’t giving up his truck.” Strickland believes the two assailants fled the shopping centre empty-handed.

“They follow the bus routine, right? So they’ll get dropped here by the bus that goes into Capreol,” he explained. “Just before the bus comes, they’ll rob here, they’ll rob the Shoppers Drug Mart and then hop back on the bus.

And what’s the bus driver going to do?” While Strickland’s actions were brave and instinctual — and the incident ended well — the Greater Sudbury Police Service does not recommend residents intervene during a theft. “The incident is being investigated by members of patrol operations, who will review video surveillance footage and attempt to identify and locate the individual responsible,” Kaitlyn Dunn, a spokesperson for the service, told The Star.

“While we understand the desire to help and the frustration felt by anyone witnessing a crime in progress, intervening in a shoplifting situation can quickly become unsafe. If you see a suspected theft, report it to store staff or contact police. Protecting yourself and those around you is the most important action you can take.”

Dunn said the incident was reported to police via the service’s online reporting tool. “The shoplifting incident was reported by the LCBO after the fact, through our online reporting system. The altercation between the individual responsible for the theft and another customer was called in through our 911 ECC,” she said.

“Both the customer and the suspect left the area while the complainant was still on the phone with our communications centre. The LCBO cancelled the request for police and reported the shoplifting online.” Strickland said residents are fed up with the petty crime that has become increasingly common throughout Greater Sudbury.

As a business owner, he is also concerned about theft from his own shop. “As a business owner, you’re always worried about people coming in, taking things, whatever. I’ve got security in place, but you know, things happen,” he said.

Last year in Greater Sudbury, there were 3,835 incidents of theft under $5,000; of that total, 2,477 offences — nearly 64.6 per cent — pertained to shoplifting. Thefts at the Hanmer LCBO have become too common, Strickland said, noting that within the span of about a week, there were four or five incidents at the outlet. He called the assailants brazen and said they “terrified” the LCBO staff.

“From what I hear, there’s a gang of them — about 20 of them. They just come into the small communities and make everyone scared,” he said. “That’s the problem — these people now know the outlying communities, like Capreol, Onaping Falls, the Valley, Val Caron and Hanmer, they don’t have security there, but they do at all the other places.

They do in New Sudbury, in the West End and South End.” Strickland would like the LCBO to invest in security personnel for its outlying locations. During the altercation, the assailant asked Strickland why he cared.

For love of community, Strickland replied. As Strickland points out, the LCBO is actually funded by taxpayers across the province. He likened stealing from the liquor board to taking advantage of the health care system.

“When they opened the door, they asked me, ‘why do you guys care anyways’? They’re so used to no one caring and no one stopping them that they grab the biggest bottles they can hardly carry,” Strickland told The Star. “They’re doing it because they know they don’t get stopped there.”

Strickland is fed up, and if the commenters on Facebook are any indication, so are his customers and friends. “It’s just like, how are we as a community just allowing this to be okay? If that’s okay, why don’t we all just go and start taking groceries next?

It doesn’t make sense,” Strickland said. Despite the repeated thefts, Strickland has found a home in the Hanmer Valley Shopping Centre. He said the recognition has “been nice, actually, and more people are finding out about my store.”

He said the community has embraced his actions, and a few people have stopped by Strickly Nostalgia to deliver a proverbial pat on the back. “I’ve only been in this mall for about a year, but I really like it here,” he said. “I like it here so much that I’m investing my life savings into a whole other store in here.

I’m expanding (the shop) to double its size.” He said he has yet to hear from the liquor board HQ, but “the ladies at the LCBO have been very nice to me. (And) I went out the other night to a restaurant and I didn’t pay for any of my beverages.”

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