One of two teens who broke into Palace Bar in downtown St. Paul and stole liquor and then tried to get onto the roof of the nearby St. Paul Hotel told police what they did was “dumb and irresponsible,” according to charges.
Seth Garrett Janick, 18, and Micah Scott Meyer, 19, both of Red Wing, are each charged in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of felony second-degree burglary and two counts of felony possession of burglary or theft tools in connection with the Jan. 31 early morning break-ins.
The duo are suspects in several other burglaries at St. Paul businesses, including Seventh Street Truck Park bar, Amsterdam Bar, 620 Club, Burger Dive and Keys Cafe, Tuesday’s criminal complaints said. The investigation is ongoing.
According to the complaints:
Just before 3:30 a.m., police responded to an alarm at the Palace Pub at 33 Seventh Place W. and found it’d been burglarized, with chairs turned over, a shoe print on the bar and bottles of booze missing.
About 15 minutes later, officers were called to the St. Paul Hotel at 350 Market St. after security guards reported two male suspects were on surveillance cameras trying to force open a roof access door.
When officers arrived, the two suspects ran and were caught and identified as Janick and Meyer. In Meyer’s backpack, officers found a pry bar, headlamp, bottle of Southern Comfort whiskey and bottle of Bacardi rum. Pry bars, a bottle of Bacardi, Malibu Original rum and two bottles of Bud Light beer were in Janick’s backpack.
Hotel video footage showed the pair forcing entry into the hotel by yanking on a lobby door and breaking the lock. They went to the roof door, where Janick tampered with a security camera and then used a crowbar to try to force open the door, but failed. They went back down through the stairwell, and left the hotel.
Video surveillance footage from Palace Pub showed Meyer pulling on a patio door, and the two going inside. Janick jumped over the bar and “the two selected and stole bottles of alcohol,” the complaint read.
In a police interview, Janick said he and friends were in St. Paul to explore tunnels. He admitted he went into the bar and was at the hotel ledge/rooftop, adding it was “dumb and irresponsible,” the complaint read.
Meyer admitted to pulling on the bar’s patio door to get inside and that he and Janick stole alcohol before walking over to the hotel. He told police they were “messing around (and) doing (expletive) we shouldn’t have,” the complaint read.
Janick and Meyer posted bond and were released from jail Wednesday. An attorney for Meyer is not listed in his court file. Janick’s attorney did not return a call for comment Thursday.
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Four days before the two break-ins, Janick was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation after admitting to “exploring” Ardent Mills Lake City Mill in Lake City, Minn., with two others in September, according to court records. He was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing.
Janick told police he saw Snapchat videos of people going through the flour mill and ”thought it would be cool to check it out,” the complaint read.
In November, Janick was convicted of trespassing after being caught with three others on the roof of a railroad station in Red Wing in August. He was fined $188. “They stated that they saw the location on social media and thought it was abandoned,” the citation read.
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