By Tim Binnall
A strange security video from Scotland shows the moment when a thief on an electric bike managed to make off with an eight-foot-tall Nutcracker statue from outside a cocktail bar. The bizarre heist reportedly occurred last Monday evening in the city of Edinburgh, where two of the towering pieces previously stood in front of the establishment Copper Blossom. In the security footage (featured above), the sticky-fingered ne'er-do-well can be seen wrestling the nearly 300-pound statue away from the basement bar's entrance and then precariously balancing it across his bike as he makes a rather clumsy getaway.
Copper Blossom manager Paul Paxton was understandably dismayed by the miscreant's actions, lamenting the loss of the statue valued at around $1,100. Particularly dispiriting, he mused, was the brazen nature of the caper, which unfolded while the bar was still open and in front of multiple bystanders who opted not to intervene as the strange scene unfolded. "People were walking past as he was loading up his bike," Paxton observed, "it's so shocking." Perhaps more surprising may simply be how the crook was able to get away, since he struggled mightily to ride down the road with the sizeable statue draped across the bike.