Drinkers vow to catch robber

Regular patrons of a Mt Maunganui tavern where a woman bar worker cashing up was held at knifepoint and forced to hand over thousands of dollars have vowed to catch the robber.

Police were searching yesterday for a balaclava-clad man who forced his way into the locked Cheers Tavern in Owens Place by climbing over a back fence and smashing a glass panel in a door at the side of the bar with a wooden ashtray just after midnight.

He went over to the woman - who was the only person in the bar and standing about 5m away behind the counter - demanded the cash she was handling at the till and then held a knife to her back while forcing her to withdraw money from a safe.

He then escaped the way he came and is thought to have run towards the Bayfair shopping centre.

The bar's owner, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, said the man made off with about $8200.

"The pub is a community. We have the same patrons day in and day out. It's regarded as their bar. I don't even have security. They've been coming in for the last hour, saying 'we'll get him'."

It was the first insurance claim the owner had made at the bar in about 20 years.

It was broken into about two years ago but the intruders got away with only made off with a few bottles of spirits.

The employee, in her early 50s, had worked at the tavern for about 12 years and was "absolutely traumatised" by the event. She had seen a counsellor and was taking time off work.

The owner, who owns three other bars in the area, said he would introduce a policy where women employees were not to work alone at night.

Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier, of the Tauranga CIB, said the last patrons had left the tavern minutes before the robbery. "My opinion is he has clearly been observing the premises for a while so obviously we need to hear from anyone who may have seen anything suspicious or anyone hanging around the bar at that time," Mr Brazier said.

"And obviously we want to hear from anyone who knows who this person is.

"We believe he's got a substantial amount of coin so that might tweak someone's memory."

Police were carrying out a scene examination yesterday and studying footage from closed-circuit television cameras.

But the bar owner had seen the footage and said it was hard to make out the man's face.

The intruder was of medium build, dark-skinned and was wearing a balaclava or piece of cloth to cover his face and a grey-coloured hooded sweatshirt and dark-coloured pants.