A Nova Scotia man got to live out a “dream come true” on the weekend when he was accidentally left behind in a liquor store after closing.
Gaurav Arora was looking at the beer selection at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation location in the Halifax business park of Bayers Lake on Sunday night when suddenly the lights shut off.
“I thought it was one of those moments when the power trips and the emergency restoration takes a couple minutes to come back,” he told CTV Atlantic.
Arora continued to check out the beer options, but when the lights didn’t come back on, he left the cooler and realized he was alone in the store.
“I was still stunned,” he said. “I could hear the alarm buzzing. At that moment, I thought: ‘Oh, whoa. I'm in an emergency. Lights are out. Alarms are buzzing. Where the hell is everybody?’"
Arora says he was able to get out of the store by himself after about 20 minutes. Soon police officers arrived at the store, where they quickly realized nothing was wrong.
"(The officer) kept on laughing the whole time," Arora said.
Arora didn’t take anything, and didn’t even get the beer he came for, but called the opportunity to have “every bottle at your disposal" a “dream come true.”
Still, he wonders how something like this could have happened.
"They could have at least called up when they were closing,” he said. “I could have walked out."
The NSLC said this is the first time someone has ever been locked inside a store after closing and said it is going to refresh its closing policy with all staff.
“We are extremely sorry for the customer,” said Bev Ware, an NSLC spokesperson. “It would be a very traumatic experience for him and we really do apologize to him."
