Police: Can of Malt Hooch Leads to Arrest of Lowcountry Man

If you are going to shoplift, it might not be wise to stick around the scene of the crime.

A Hanahan, S.C. man learned that lesson the hard way last week after he got caught with an allegedly stolen can of Mike's Hard Lemonade while standing outside the Spinx station at 100 S. Main Street, a Mauldin Police report said.

An officer who had been advised to be on the lookout for a suspicious older man on a bicycle in the vicinity of nearby Mauldin Baptist Church found 56-year-old Jim Polzin outside the convenience store speaking with two other males last Thursday, the report said. 

Things might have gone differently if Polzin had simply answered the officer's questions about where he was coming from and where he was going, then go about his day, but the questioning only agitated Polzin, who attempted to walk away from the officer, the report said. When advised to stop, Polzin refused, causing the police officer to grab the man and press him up against an ice cooler outside the store, the report said.

That's when a cold, frosty can of Mike's fell out from under his shirt, the report said.

A clerk inside the store told police she had earlier sold Polzin a can of Spark's — another brand of flavored malt liquor — but not the can of Mike's, and said the man was "acting weird and was very talkative," the report said. 

Polzin said the can had been purchased earlier in Simpsonville, but the police officer noted that the can was still too cold to have been purchased that far away, the report said.

Polzin was then arrested for petit larceny and transported to the county detention center, where he was later released.