Montclair police investigated the disappearance of 40,049 pounds of beer from a distribution center after two thefts on Aug. 17. Montclair Police Lt. Rick Dominguez put the stolen product at $45,000 when he spoke with Essential California on Thursday.
The shipment included 1,602 cases and 33,984 cans, according to the original police breakdown. That count covered 860 cases of 15-packs of 25-ounce cans of PBR, 546 cases of 30-packs of 12-ounce PBR, and 196 cases of 24-packs of 12-ounce non-alcoholic cans of Old Milwaukee.
Rick Dominguez and Montclair
Police later raised their estimate to $70,000 on Friday. The weight figure also shifted from 39,264 pounds for beer alone to 40,049 pounds once pallets, plastic separators and other material were included.
Montclair police believed the first theft happened at 10 a.m. on Aug. 17, when $45,000 worth of product was picked up at the distribution center and never reached Tucson, Ariz. An hour later, investigators believed a second incident involved $25,000 worth of Anheuser-Busch and PBR beers retrieved by a purported subcontracting company that submitted false paperwork.
Pabst Blue Ribbon posts
Pabst originally posted that a truck was stolen, but company officials later clarified that no vehicle went missing. The posts were tongue-in-cheek enough that they may have made some people think the appeals were not real pleas for help, which left a freight loss looking smaller and less urgent than it was.
The Montclair Police Department did not issue a statement about the heist until more than a week after it happened. Investigators were examining whether the two Aug. 17 incidents were tied to a fraudulent cargo-theft operation, and the missing beer and its destination remain the practical problem for the people handling the shipment now.
San Bernardino County shipment
The beer came from a Montclair distribution center in San Bernardino County about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. For the shipper, the immediate issue is not shelf stock but a missing commercial load that crossed from paperwork into loss without arriving in Tucson, Ariz.
