Rampaging peacock trashes liquor store

A rogue peacock has destroyed US$500 worth of wine and spirits after brazenly strutting into a liquor store in Los Angeles and refusing to leave.

The persistent peacock evaded capture for 90 minutes

The flightless fowl found its way through the door of the Royal Oaks Liquor Store in Arcadia, California, earlier this week, perhaps on the hunt for a bottle of ‘Peck-orino’, we like to imagine.

However it wasn’t long before the avian adventurer was confronted by an animal control officer, intent on booting out the beaked intruder.

Much like a Benny Hill sketch, the officer began the tricky task of chasing the pesky peacock around the store with a net.

However this fine-feathered peafowl was having none of it, leading the officer on a 90-minute goose chase around the store, trashing much of its stock in the process.

As he watched the bizarre face-off between man and peacock unfold, Rani Ghanem, a 21-year-old San Bernardino resident whose family owns the store, pinpointed the exact moment of calamity.

“He was trying to get it with the fishing net, and (the bird) jumped on the first wine bottle. When that happened, I was like, ‘Aw, this is about to be a big mess’”, speaking to the Miami Herald.  

“He tried to get it again with the net… It just went straight diving into all the bottles. The more he kept on trying to use the net, the more it kept on flapping its wings and knocking everything over.”

Finally, the persistent peacock was ensnared, unharmed, having destroyed $500 worth of wine and spirits, including some expensive Champagne.

“He’s got expensive taste,” added Mr Ghanem. “I’m like, ‘You break, you buy, dude’. But clearly he did not. He got away with it.”

Peacocks are actually very common in Los Angeles, having been introduced to the area by Elias “Lucky” Baldwin, a real estate and business tycoon, who imported the birds from India in the 1800s. Over the years, the birds have escaped captivity to breed in the wild, causing mischief in residential gardens by eating flora and fauna, and occasionally attacking shiny car fenders.

For more booze-related animal adventures, check out our top 10 drunken animal stories.