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Trashed trash panda trashes liquor store [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-12-03  

A drunken raccoon was found asleep amid its work at the ABC liquor store in Ashland, Virginia, a trail of broken bottles and spilled booze leading to its resting place by the staff toilet.

"Officer Martin safely secured our masked bandit and transported him back to the shelter to sober up before questioning," Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter posted to social media. "After a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer. … Just another day in the life at Hanover Animal Protection!"

The Associated Press talked to the animal control officer who responded to the call and found the plastered procyonid.

"I personally like raccoons," she told them, "They are funny little critters. He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything."

Sadly, there's no video footageof the trashed panda because it "took the cameras down with him" entering through the ceiling early Saturday morning, adds Axios Richmond's Sabrina Moreno.

Hanover County Animal Protection is the area's animal shelter, providing veterinarian care and housing for homeless or unwanted animals until they are adopted.

Charles Darwin noted that tameness in animals is signified by traits such as shorter snouts, floppy ears and patchy colors—all beginning to appear in raccoons in America, reportedly showing signs of domestication. As Gail Sherman wrote:

City raccoons were found to have snouts that were 3.5% smaller than their woodland counterparts, indicating that they have begun the process of self-domestication. The already cute trash pandas are starting to look more like pets, perhaps in an evolutionary bid to co-exist more closely with humans.

Previously:

• Watch this sleepy raccoon yawning, stretching, and settling in for the night

• Raccoons are self-domesticating and getting cuter

• Trash pandamonium for Airbus at raccoon-occupied factory

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