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“I didn’t want to hurt the guy because he looked like he was high on drugs,” said Cartwright, a Stonewall resident who works as a support worker for New Directions family services agency, taking care of vulnerable adults. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing and he had this endless look in his face. So I choked him out unconscious and then I had to bring him back.

Photo by GLEN DAWKINS/Winnipeg Sun/Postme / SunMedia

“I said, ‘Hey man, you can’t steal. Just take a sandwich and leave.’ He took a sandwich and the girl was really shaken up and had quite an ordeal.”

Winnipeg Police spokesperson confirmed that officers were called to the scene following a report from the Starbucks manager. No arrests have been made in the incident.

“These guys are high on drugs and they’re walking into stores and they’re stealing and just walking out and nobody does anything,” said Cartwright, a regular customer at that Starbucks, often bringing his four-year-old dog Max along with the manager coming out to visit with Max. “They know that they can get away with it. Our city is a working-class city and we’re a blue-collar city and people are just sick of seeing this. They’re just fed up with being ripped off.”

Recently, police have reported an increase in crimes against liquor marts and other retail outlets. Last Wednesday, five teens were arrested after a group of young suspects swarmed a Tyndall Park liquor mart — stuffing their bags with hundreds of liquor bottles — in a chaotic scene that was caught on video.

“I’m glad at the end of it that nobody really got hurt except my phone and they ended up paying for a new phone,” said Cartwright. “So good for Starbucks that they honoured that.”

gdawkins@postmedia.com

Twitter: @SunGlenDawkins