The crazy story about the man who broke a window at The Wieners Circle hot dog stand last week took a couple of strange turns over the weekend.
You may have seen video of the incident, which took place around 6:30 p.m. last Wednesday. According to the restaurant’s Twitter feed, a man walked into the shop at 2622 North Clark and then pelted the counter staff with snowballs when they wouldn’t serve him until he put on a COVID mask.
He returned a few minutes later and tossed a brick through the restaurant’s glass door.
Thursday morning, The Wieners Circle released a video of the incident and a surveillance image of the car that the business said the man got away in. Internet detectives have been working the case ever since.
It’s important to note that police have not publicly linked the vehicle or anyone associated with it to The Wieners Circle case.
But a 26-year-old woman who’s a registrant of the car reported it stolen around 8 p.m. Friday, a CPD spokesperson said. In the report, which she filed over the phone, the woman said she parked the car in Portage Park around 4:30 p.m. on February 4 and then went on vacation, according to the spokesperson.
She said the car was gone when she returned to pick it up around 11 a.m. Thursday, the spokesperson continued. Area Three detectives are investigating the auto theft report.
On Sunday morning, someone apparently familiar with the restaurant’s tweets called 911 to report that a car “wanted” for criminal damage at The Wieners Circle was parked on a Northwest Side street — about a block from where it was reportedly stolen.
A Chicago police officer went to the scene and arranged for the vehicle to be towed because it was on CPD’s list of stolen cars, according to city records. As of Sunday evening, the spokesperson could not confirm that the vehicle had actually been towed.
Meanwhile, CWB has learned that a photo the restaurant posted Friday of a man driving the car was taken by a city-owned camera in Edgewater on January 31.
Sunday afternoon, The Wieners Circle offered to pay to get the woman’s car out of the pound “if she brings fwd her dude and he pays for our door.”
They also had some good news for whoever broke their door and assaulted their staff with snowballs: “We won’t press charges, we just want our door paid for, and peace throughout our great city of Chicago.”