Cops: Pizza shop owner is a rat who hid mice at competing shops
In what was hardly the best-laid scheme of mice and men, an Upper Darby pizza shop owner tried to sabotage two of his competitors today by stashing mice in their pizza shops, according to police.
Cops: Pizza shop owner is a rat who hid mice at competing shops
This story has been updated
In what was hardly the best-laid scheme of mice and men, an Upper Darby pizza shop owner tried to sabotage two of his competitors today by stashing mice in their pizza shops, according to police.
Two Upper Darby cops were eating lunch in Verona Pizza on West Chester Pike around 2 p.m. when Nikolas Galiatsatos, 47, walked in to Verona's carrying a bag and asked to use the bathroom, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.
Once he left the shop, the owner of Verona's looked in the bathroom and told the officers that Galiastsatos, whom he did not know, had left footprints on his toilet, police said. When the owner checked in the ceiling above the toilet, he found a plastic bag with a brown paper bag inside, Chitwood said.
Believing the man had stashed drugs in his ceiling, the pizza shop owner turned the bag over to police, who discovered that instead of heroin in the bag, there were several little hairy ones - three white mice to be exact, police said.
Although they didn't get a good look at the rat bastard who put them there, they looked outside and saw him walking into nearby Uncle Nick's Pizza with another bag, Chitwood said.
When Galiatsatos saw police, he quickly entered and left Uncle Nick's and cops later discovered that he had dumped another bag with five living mice and one dead mouse in the garbage can at Uncle Nick's, Chitwood said.
Galiatsatos, who is the owner of Nina's Bella Pizzeria, which is also on West Chester Pike, was taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct, harassment and animal cruelty. Police said his business, which opened only a month or two ago, is not doing well and that may have prompted the attempted sabotage.
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Wow. Much better idea than offering a better product at cheaper prices.- OK, Tonner. That was funny. Dry sarcasism at its finest.— Zee77
- Sarcasism??? Is that like wittyosity? Or is being snarky at yourself in the mirror?— uncle meat
- There's enough mice in Upper Darby, maybe the pizza shop could have their own. I wouldn't expect much from pet shop mice. The Greek should have share some of his mouse mice.— road515
- Moe, Larry the cheese, Moe, Larry the cheese.........— STEPHEN1988
- the owner should be mad to eat the mice.— etbarksdale
- This is one-way of killing the competition.— Anne Arkey
- Animal cruelty charges. LOL. But cop kills innocent dog when raiding wrong house and no charges?— Scarlet
- Comment removed.
- This is Greek-on-Greek crime. The next bag they will find will have gerbils and a lighter in it.— USAFirst1
- Upper Darby gives me the creeps.— AreaMan
- Upper Darby Pizza Wars coming this summer to the Food Network!
KING~out— thee~KING - I smell a rat.— aviator
- Mob - Uncle Nino Pizza -
