Crazed citizen called the police on us.

People are losing their minds out there. Hoping you’re staying safe and avoiding the crazies.

Last week, we had an “incident” at RockPit that began with the police being called on us and ended with them taking a tour of RockPit and most likely becoming customers of ours.

You see, Sean and I, along with our friend Kevin who helped build RockPit were sitting outside, enjoying a beer and discussing among many things, graphic design for some projects RockPit is working on.

And when I say he helped build RockPit, I mean nearly everything you see at RockPit he had a hand in building.

During our conversation, a white SUV barrelled into our parking lot like the driver dropped a cigarette into their lap from across the street at ABC.

An angry-looking dude jumped out of his vehicle and powerwalked his way up to the entrance.

(not an actual representation of dude. He was much angrier)

As he approached the front door, he snapped a few pictures of us sitting outside. At first, I thought he had never been here before, and he was taking pics of the RockPit sign.

But nope. He was being a creeper and snapping pics of us.

He headed inside to the bar and continued snapping pictures of those inside the building, including a few customers waiting for their order and our staff members, Calista, Rachel, Sarah, and Cody.

When Sarah approached him, the first thing he said, “It’s illegal to be drinking beer here.”

She replied, “Uh. Ok?”

He didn’t ask for the manager or owner. He just berated Sarah.

He, of course, was wrong. He assumed that customers were buying beer and drinking it in our taproom. But it was us enjoying our beers, as we usually do while we’re working during the quarantine.

I mean… We need quality control during the quarantine too. And the RockPit crew is doing lots of quality control. 🙂

He loitered in the building for a few minutes, texting furiously like a teenager whose girlfriend just broke up with him.

(dramatic recreation of angry dude texting)

After a few minutes, he scurried out of the brewery back into his SUV. We watched him sit there for several minutes on the phone. Then as fast as he roared into our parking lot, he left.

A few minutes later, a police officer arrives.

As he walked into the building, I was hanging by the end of the bar and he approached me and asked, “Are you the owner?”

“Yep!”

“I got a call that you had a bunch of customers here drinking on-site.”

He looked around, saw customers waiting for orders, and a few of our bartenders at the end of the bar.

He continued, “That doesn’t seem to be the case.”

I said, “Nope, me and my staff are drinking, as you can see” lifting my beer to show him.

He said, “Nothing wrong with that. You just can’t be selling beer to people and letting them drink it here.”

I said “Nope. Everyone buying beer is taking it home.”

The officer laughed and said, “Yeah, I see that. So… I’ve never been here before. You guys make your own beer here?”

It took me a second to realize he moved on from asking questions about us selling beer for on-site consumption to asking about the brewery.

Just then Sean walked up.

I smirked and said, “Yep. Everything’s made on site. Usually, everyone enjoys their beer 20 feet from where it’s made.”

Sean and I chit chatted with him for a few minutes. He told us that his brother loves craft beer and wants to bring him by when he comes to town. 

A few minutes later another officer walked into the brewery.

The only thing I could think was, “Wow, that angry dude just wasted the resources of two police officers over an assumption. He obviously disrespects the police and thinks they should waste their time on stuff like this.”

The other officer looked around for a few seconds and asked, “So… you guys make your own beer here?”

I said, “Yep.” Paused for a second and asked, “So wait… neither of you has been here before?”

They both shook their heads no. I said, “Well, let’s show you around.”

They both agreed, and we took them on a quick tour. With the proper social distancing, of course.

After the tour, I thanked the officers for swinging by and wished them luck with all the calls they’re fielding from people with nothing better to do with their time.

They chuckled and went on their way.

“Assume makes an ass out of you and me (ass u me)”

My friend Patrick said that to me today. It sums up my feelings about assumptions.

Assumptions are the epitome of laziness and you should never make them. I’ve been guilty of making assumptions only to have them come back to bite me in the ass every, single, time.

This guy was too much of a coward to ask us what’s going on and assumed that we were selling beer to customers to drink in our taproom.

He was wrong. The assumption he made handed us a few new customers. In other words, it didn’t go exactly how he planned.

So at least the silver lining in having the cops called on us is that we gained two new customers. We’ll hopefully never see the angry dude again. Besides he’s not our type of customer.

He came from the parking lot of ABC where I can only assume (lol) that he was buying 24 packs of Michelob Ultra.

We’ll leave him to team InBev.

Hoping I can see you in the taproom again soon,

Chris Rock
Co-founder
chris@rockpitbrewing.com
407-826-1773 – Brewery
321-427-6870 – Cell