As a heatwave bears down on the country, most New Yorkers are melting, miserable and clinging to their air conditioners to escape the high temperatures, which have reached over 100F (38C) this week. The heat seems to have inspired a number of odd outcomes - including an ice-cream crime wave, as would-be thieves attempted to steal 80 pints.
John Catsimatidis, owner of the supermarket chain Gristedes, told CBS that his stores and his competitors’ have been affected by the thefts. On Friday, he put out a $5,000 reward for the arrest and prosecution of the thieves. He posted photos of a man and a woman with a cart overflowing with ice-cream on Facebook.
Under the scheme, pints of Häagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s, which are sold for about $6, are taken from the store while the manager is distracted. The ice-cream is supposedly sold to local delis or bodegas for 10 cents on the dollar, Catsimatidis said. He hopes store owners will cooperate with police to catch the criminals. “If the bodega owner wants to collect $5,000, maybe he can work out a deal with police department,” Catsimatidis said. “But he’s a bad guy, too, for buying it.”
There have been more than 130 arrests related to ice-cream theft this year, according to CBS.
The heatwave has also caused a number of more ... unsavory outcomes – including flying cockroaches. Experts said high temperatures encourage the bugs to use their wings, which they don’t often use in cooler climates. New Yorkers were dismayed, calling the situation a nightmare or pledging to move away.
And if that’s not enough to make you think twice about going outside, how about spontaneously combusting horse manure? Near the Finger Lakes region of New York state, horse manure “spontaneously combusted in the excessive heat and dry conditions” two weeks ago, according to the New York state department of environmental conservation. The smell of burning manure wafted into town and the fire took more than two hours to extinguish.
Amid the strange occurrences, the high temperatures in the north-east are causing serious damage and have even proven deadly, prompting Mayor Bill de Blasio to warn New York City residents to take precautions. The National Weather Service issued excessive heat alerts into early next week for major north-eastern cities. Afterward, temperatures are scheduled to fall in most areas (much to the relief of New York’s ice-cream purveyors).
