ASHLAND, Va. — Employees opening a Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control store in this Hanover County town walked into a boozy crime scene the morning after Black Friday, Nov. 29, 2025.
Police and state officials say the so-called drunk raccoon fell through a ceiling tile overnight, smashed at least 14 bottles of liquor worth about $250 and apparently sampled the spill before passing out in the employee bathroom.
Surveillance, cleanup and a very asleep drunk raccoon
According to Virginia ABC, the break-in began sometime between Friday night closing and early Saturday, when the drunk raccoon apparently crawled into the building from above, damaging part of the security system and triggering an overnight alarm. Because no people were seen in the store, the manager waited until morning to investigate, then found shattered bottles, liquor pooled on the floor and an empty path leading toward the back of the building.
Security footage and photographs released by authorities show aisles littered with broken rum, scotch, flavoured whiskey and even holiday eggnog before the trail ends at the staff restroom, where the drunk raccoon was discovered sprawled near the toilet, unresponsive but breathing.
Hanover County Animal Protection Officer Samantha Martin was called to the scene and, as the shelter later joked, “safely secured our masked bandit and transported him back to the shelter to sober up before questioning.” Store staff finished mopping up and were able to reopen later that day, despite losing more than a dozen bottles to the raccoon’s Black Friday weekend bender.
Officials said the animal spent several hours sleeping off the alcohol under observation at the county shelter. In a social media update, the agency reported that the very intoxicated raccoon showed “zero signs of injury … and was safely released back to the wild,” aside from what they described as a likely hangover and some poor life choices.
Not Virginia’s first wild customer — and not the only drunk raccoon
Virginia ABC said its roughly 400 state-run stores have had previous run-ins with wildlife, including deer and even a cow near a drive-through window, but this marks the first time a drunk raccoon has been blamed for an after-hours break-in. The agency noted that raccoons are common in both rural and urban areas and are clever enough to pry into trash cans, climb into attics and, in rare cases, crash straight through a liquor store ceiling.
The Black Friday weekend escapade also fits into a longer pattern of headline-grabbing drunk raccoon encounters. In 2016, a Tennessee liquor store in Bristol reported a similar incident after a raccoon climbed the shelving, knocked over bottles, and caused roughly $250 in damage, a case later highlighted by the local New Hampshire station WMUR.
Two years later, residents in Milton, West Virginia, flooded 911 with reports of “rabid” raccoons stumbling through yards, only for police to determine the animals were actually drunk on fermented crabapples and safe enough to be released once they sobered up, according to ABC News coverage of the case.
Wildlife officers say those earlier episodes help explain why the Ashland drunk raccoon survived its late-night liquor binge. Raccoons are opportunistic omnivores accustomed to scavenging human food waste and, occasionally, naturally fermented fruit. While alcohol can still be dangerous, brief intoxication followed by careful monitoring and release is often possible when the animals show no serious injuries or neurological symptoms.
Viral fame and a quick return to business
Photos from Hanover County Animal Protection of the drunk raccoon “splooted” beside the toilet have circulated widely on social media, turning the masked intruder into an unlikely Black Friday folk antihero. National outlets from The Washington Post to ABC News, as well as Richmond-area stations such as WTVR CBS 6, have picked up the story, amplifying the viral “trash panda” meme.
For the Ashland store, however, the humour stopped at the cleanup. After sweeping up glass, restocking shelves and resetting cameras, staff were back to serving holiday shoppers by midday Saturday, while the drunk raccoon was back in the woods — hopefully with a new appreciation for staying out of liquor stores.
