Self service at supermarket which opened itself

Apr 23, 2011, 7:18 GMT

Wellington - Opportunist customers took self service too far at a New Zealand supermarket when a computer glitch opened the doors for about eight hours without a checkout operator or other staff member in sight, news reports said Saturday.

New Zealand law bans shops from opening on Good Friday, but the doors opened and the lights came on at Pak 'n Save, the biggest supermarket in the North Island city of Hamilton, at 1 am and the word that free groceries were to be had soon got around.

Sergeant Guy Callahan said police received a call at 9:20 am from a member of the public who said people were coming out of the store with shopping trolleys full of goods and no-one was manning the check-outs, the Waikato Times reported.

Police closed the supermarket and contacted the owners, but noticed that some people were paying for their shopping using the self-service check-out facilities.

'We couldn't tell who had paid and who hadn't and so our first priority was to close the supermarket and contact the owners,' he said.

Owner Glenn Miller told the paper he suspected the fault was linked to a computer security command cancelling the normal opening time because the seven-day-a-week store was meant to stay closed for Good Friday.

He said that 12 people had used the self-service tills to pay for goods and appealed to others who had shopped without paying to return and produce their cash, promising to contribute the income to an appeal fund for victims of devastating earthquakes in Christchurch.