A gentleman stood out when he stiffed a Key West bartender three times on New Years Eve. In fact, the 21-year-old tourist made such a grand impression that when police later released video of vandals who burned down a Christmas tree, causing $5,000 in extensive damages to a city landmark buoy behind it, the bartender spotted him immediately.
From AP:
Like other locals across the city, bartender Cameron Briody watched the video, and recognized the 21-year-old man who had stiffed him at Irish Kevin's on Key West's famous Duval Street. "I knew immediately that I had served him and that he had used a card, so his name would be on the slips," Briody told the Herald.
The bar's general manager, Daylin Starks, turned to recordings from the "ton of cameras" that watch over the bar each night, and matched credit card receipts to time-stamped videos of the man and his 22-year-old friend.
"We could follow them the whole time, in and out of the bar," Starks said. "We could see them getting rejected from all the girls they were trying to hit on."
Armed with their identifications and matching their movements to the vandalism down the street, police swiftly announced arrest warrants for the vandalism suspects, and city workers quickly restored the 20-ton concrete monument, which proclaims it stands just 90 miles from Cuba. Key West visitors couldn't wait to pose for more pictures at the spot.
