A night out at Buffalo Wild Wings for a Bloomington couple ended in a criminal misdemeanor citation after police found a glass pipe in their possession.
Police were called at 9:51 p.m. Wednesday to the Buffalo Wild Wings at 1350 W. Bloomfield Road after an employee reported a couple had attempted to pay for their meal with four $5 counterfeit bills, Bloomington Police Department Lt. John Kovach said.
Kovach said the bills were easily identifiable as fake. They lacked a watermark, were made from the wrong material and had matching serial numbers. One bill had a foreign language on it. The bills also failed a counterfeit-detecting pen test.
Officers interviewed 47-year-old Troy McCormick and his female partner, Kovach said. The woman told officers they had used a gift card to pay for their meal but didn’t realize it did not have enough money on it to cover the meal. The two used a combination of their money to make up the difference.
Both McCormick and the woman claimed they did not know the money was fake and said they believed had received the money from a man who was staying at their trailer. McCormick said he had real money he could use to pay the bill.
Kovach said the manager of Buffalo Wild Wings advised the two they would not be allowed on the property for six months. The woman then asked police to look at the rest of the money she had to confirm it was not fake.
When police were searching her purse, they found a glass pipe wrapped in a napkin with a white residue on it, Kovach said. McCormick told police the pipe was his. He claimed to have found it on the ground in his driveway and put it in his pocket.
McCormick was cited with a preliminary charge of possession of paraphernalia. He was not arrested. The pipe was taken by police officers to be destroyed.
The manager of Buffalo Wild Wings told police when he discovered the counterfeit bills, he stopped the couple’s meal from being made. Since no food was consumed, Kovach said McCormick and the woman did not have to pay a bill. Their gift card was returned.
