The shop reopened on Monday and was quickly repaired. No books were taken, said Lenart, with the thieves only taking money from the box on the counter where they had been collecting for the LGBT+ youth charity Mosaic. “It puts me in mind of a Joe Orton play.” “ got distracted by the booze and were here when the police arrived,” he said. Lenart said a member of the public had heard the window being smashed, and had called the police. They seemed to have been boozing up mid-burglary, which probably wasn’t the most prudent thing to do.”
As I went through the shop afterwards, I found an empty bottle of tequila, and an open bottle of prosecco on the kitchen table downstairs. “I think they were looking for cash, but when they didn’t find any, they started bringing up computer equipment from the basement. “They had been there for some time,” said bookseller Uli Lenart.
