Omega busts another thief at BCA

So I'm standing in the Omega Billiards booth last night purchasing a jump cue and new case. While I'm paying, I see a guy that's about 25 years old behind us looking at McDermott cues. He takes one off the rack, places it against his side and walks out of the booth. I tell Gilbert who's working the booth that someone just walked out with one of his cues. Since he was the only employee in the booth, I followed the guy to the table his team was about to start his match on. He started showing the cue to all his teammates who ranged from probably 35 - 60 years old. I walked back and showed Gilbert where the guy was. He walked over, grabbed the cue and seen his price sticker still attached to the bottom. Gilbert snatched him up and took him back to his booth and we called security. Bill Stock also showed up to find out what was going on. Long story short....the guy admitted to stealing the cue. His team came over and seemed really pissed off at Omega for pressing the issue to call the police. They offered to pay for the cue and couldn't understand why they preferred to press charges instead. One of the guys from the team even stood in the isle telling people "don't buy anything in this booth." The guy was escorted off the floor by security and I believe they were going to turn him over to the police. Bill Stock said he would be banned from the tournament floor (why not banned from BCA period?) and not allowed back. The team only had 5 players so they had to forfeit every 5th match since their teammate was taken away.

I just want to say that I respect Omega's decision to press charges. They were ripped off at BCA last year and caught the guy, ripped off at the Riviera back in March and now ripped off again in July. Enough is enough. One less thief on the tournament floor! The team in question were wearing shirts that said "Santa Barbara Moose Lodge." Wonder how they'll feel finding out someone representing them is a thief.



::::::::EDIT:::::::::: See post #58 on page 4 for pictures and links

The most comical part was when one of his teammates said "we'll pay for the cue...he's young and it was an honest mistake." I about fell over when I heard that.

Banks said:

The only mistake he made was not knowing which ones were worth anything! The rest was just stupid being stupid. Think he'll sign up here afterwards and try to defend himself like the idiot from last year(or was it 2 years ago)?

I was half tempted to post on the Santa Barbara pool FB page asking which one got arrested.

Click to expand...

I actually just sent the details to the contact email address for the Santa Barbara Moose Lodge. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.


I was going to get a picture of the guy but they already escorted him out.