Newlyweds Busted Trying To Shoplift $1049 In Groceries For Their Wedding Reception Share 
 
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 A Pennsylvania couple married a week ago allegedly attempted to shoplift more than $1000 of merchandise from a supermarket--items they planned to use for their wedding reception last Friday afternoon. 
 
 Brittany Lurch, 22, and Arthur Phillips, 32, were arrested after trying to walk out of a Wegmans with goods valued at $1,049.26, according to the Patton Township Police Department. The newlyweds, pictured in the above mug shots, were collared after wheeling the hot merchandise out of the store in two shopping carts to their waiting Hyundai. 
 
 Phillips told arresting officers that the merchadise was “for their wedding reception” later that afternoon, according to a criminal complaint excerpted here. Lurch, a mother of two, and Phillips were wed a day earlier, on August 18. 
 
 While the complaint does not provide an itemized list of goods boosted from Wegman’s, a cop reported that, “the suspects had ordered numerous items from the seafood department.” A source familiar with the items found in the couple’s carts told TSG that the stolen merch included a shrimp platter ($115); two spiral hams ($70); a vegetable tray ($50); appetizer trays; eggs; a punch bowl; forks; spoons; soda; dinnerware for eight; turkey; toothbrushes; a polo shirt; and Gillette Fusion razor blades. 
 
 Before bonding out, the newlyweds briefly lived under the same roof at the Centre County jail, where they were booked on misdemeanor theft and receiving stolen property charges. ||||| Arthur Phillips III, 32, and Brittany M. Lurch, 22, both of Centre Hall, accused of stealing more than $1,000 worth of merchandise from Wegmans on Saturday. PHOTO PROVIDED 
 
 A newlywed couple is accused of stealing more than $1,000 of merchandise Saturday from a supermarket that police said they intended for their wedding reception later that afternoon. 
 
 The value of the stolen items totaled $1,049.26, police said. 
 
 Arthur Phillips III, 32, and Brittany M. Lurch, 22, both of Centre Hall, married Aug. 18, and scheduled their wedding reception for 5:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. But at 2:30 p.m., Patton Township police were called to Wegmans supermarket for a report of a retail theft. 
 
 They watched the couple on surveillance cameras put items in their shopping cart, and walk out to their car without paying, according to an affidavit filed by police. Police then arrested Phillips and Lurch, who told them the items were intended for their reception. 
 
 The couple didn’t make it to the reception. Charged with misdemeanor counts of retail theft and receiving stolen property, Phillips and Lurch remain in Centre County jail in lieu of $2,500 bail. 
 
 Police said they found a glass smoking pipe with marijuana residue while searching the couple’s car. Philips was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. 
 
 They each waived their right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday. 
 
 Mike Dawson can be reached at 231-4616. ||||| A “Hawaii collector’s edition” Spam can at a grocery store in Kailua, Hawaii in 2004. (Lucy Pemoni/AP) 
 
 Last month in the Pearl City community on Oahu, Safeway customer Arlene Sua watched as a man suddenly grabbed eight cases of Spam and headed for the door. She thought “‘Okay, this isn’t real. No, he’s not going to take it, no, no,” she told KHON TV. 
 
 But it was real. The man took off with the Spam and disappeared. 
 
 Elsewhere on the island at about the same time, three women loaded up shopping carts at a Long’s drugstore with 18 cases of — you guessed it — Spam. They made a rush for the exit. Fortunately, an alert customer, Kurt Fevella, saw the attempted heist in progress, stationed himself at the door on Spam patrol and stopped them in their tracks. They shoved the carts toward at him and took off, Fevella told KITV4. 
 
 A shop at a downtown mall wasn’t so lucky. The Honolulu Police Department is now offering a $1,000 reward for a man (and an apparent accomplice) who entered a store on Oct. 3, grabbed a case of Spam and punched a security guard who attempted to stop him. 
 
 Police reported that the thief “fled in an unknown direction.” 
 
 These Spam snatchers are not hungry people desperate for Spam, said Tina Yamaki, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii. They are most likely part of a Spam black market that’s taking off in a state where the demand for Spam knows no bounds. 
 
 “It’s a staple,” Yamaki told The Washington Post. 
 
 The thefts have proliferated to the point that some businesses are putting Spam in plastic cases under lock and key, she said, along with the more conventional and more expensive shoplifting targets such as electronics, Gillette Power Fusion razor refills and, as it happens, canned corned beef, also popular in Hawaii. 
 
 
 
 Spam musubi. (Larry Crowe/AP) 
 
 To buy a can of Spam, you have to ask a salesperson to retrieve it. 
 
 Yamaki thinks Spam has become a form of currency, particularly for drug addicts in need of quick cash. With Spam selling for roughly $2.50 per 12-ounce can (depending on where in Hawaii you look), a thief who paid nothing for an 8-pack or a case of 12 can turn a decent profit underselling the retailers from whom they stole. 
 
 “It’s organized retail crime,” said Yamaki. “It’s not like ‘I’m going in to steal Spam to feed my family. I’m going in with a list of things I want to steal.’” 
 
 The thieves work in teams, one to distract onlookers, the others to “run out with Spam.” 
 
 “We hear a lot of rumors where it’s going,” Yamaki said. “We’ve heard they work through middlemen. We’ve heard that they’re selling it from the back of their cars. We’ve heard all kinds of rumors. Whether they’re true or not, I’m not sure.” 
 
 To some mainland Americans, this may all seem funny. But mainlanders often think of Spam either as junk email or a cheap meat that comes in a can and has no taste, which is true if you just eat plain Spam from a can. After all, how flavorful is a mixture of pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite? 
 
 But in Hawaii, nobody eats it plain out of the can. They eat “Spam fried rice,” or “Spam and eggs” or a Korean spam stew called budae jjigae and especially Spam musubi, a sushi-like snack of cooked rice, Spam and often teriyaki sauce all wrapped in seaweed. (Try it in Hawaii, you’ll like it, Anthony Bourdain once advised. “They love it,” he said. “They’ll make you love it.”) 
 
 And they eat it in vast quantities and have since World War II, when conventional meat was scarce and the thousands of GIs based in Hawaii ate the Hormel product as lunch meat. 
 
 
 
 Vendors sell Spam-themed merchandise in Honolulu. (AP) 
 
 Now Hawaii residents consume more per capita than any other state, some five million pounds a year, “six cans for every man, woman and child,” as National Geographic once noted with a dash of disapproval, commenting that “a 12-oz can is supposed to contain six servings, and each serving includes 25 percent of the U.S. recommended daily fat intake and 33 percent of a day’s sodium.” 
 
 But in Hawaii, they don’t make fun of Spam. They celebrate Spam, literally, with an annual “Spam Jam” in Waikiki. 
 
 But thefts of Spam in bulk, by the case, appear to be a relatively recent phenomenon, Yamaki said. She attributes the thefts to a state law enacted last year that changed the definition of a felony from a theft worth at least $350 or to one worth at least $750. 
 
 So a thief could make off with about 300 cans before risking a felony charge. “They steal right under” that $750 cutoff, Yamaki said. 
 
 That’s why the Oahu online publication, Honolulu Civil Beat, found cans of Spam locked up in a case at a Walgreens this week. 
 
 “Items electronically monitored for theft,” said the sign. 
 
 More from Morning Mix: 
 
 White ex-Tulsa police officer convicted of fatally shooting daughter’s black boyfriend 
 
 A veteran died as a nurse’s aide played video games instead of checking on him, report says 
 
 Spam heists in Hawaii prompt retailers to put the wildly popular ‘mystery meat’ in locked cases 
 
 Chelsea Handler says Trump’s presidency motivated her to leave her talk show for activism
– From the chapel to the clink? A Pennsylvania couple is accused of stealing $1,049.26 of food and other goods from a grocery store on Saturday afternoon—with the intention of serving said food to guests at their 5:30pm wedding reception. Arthur Phillips, 32, and Brittany Lurch, 22, were married two days before they walked into a Wegmans to "shop" for what a source told the Smoking Gun included a shrimp platter, two spiral hams, a veggie tray, and soda, among other edibles. Other crucial reception items included a punch bowl, forks and spoons, and, in a sign that there's nothing like one-stop shopping, a polo shirt and Gillette Fusion razor blades. The most brainiac part? According to the criminal complaint, the duo pushed one cart out of the store ... then went right back in and starting filling up a second cart. The Centre Daily Times reports that when police arrested the pair, they also found a pipe with pot residue in the couple's car. The groom apparently took the fall for his new bride, and was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia; both were hit with theft-related charges.