Juneau’s downtown Foodland grocery store doesn’t have a drive-thru entrance, but a Sunday night driver apparently tried to make one of his own.
About 4:50 p.m., the Juneau Police Department received a report that a vehicle had struck a wall at the Foodland IGA on Willoughby Avenue. The vehicle, a green Chevy Tahoe, drove away from the scene before police arrived.
When officers investigated, they found the impact site to the right of the Heritage Coffee entrance. The impact overturned objects on the inside of the wall and appeared to cause some structural damage including broken bricks and extensive cracking. The property manager told JPD that repairs will likely cost $40,000-$50,000.
A store manager reached Monday afternoon said no one was injured in the accident, and the store remains open.
Less than 30 minutes after the accident, a JPD officer found the damaged green Tahoe at the Gruening Park subdivision home of its registered owner.
According to court documents posted Monday, the car was identified by its license plate (recorded at the scene of the accident) and the fact that brick fragments were embedded into the bumper and tow hooks.
At the car-owner’s home, JPD officer Lee Phelps found 39-year-old Joshua Hunnel, the person whom police allege was the vehicle’s driver. Hunnel denied driving the car and said he had been drinking at home all day, but his face matched a description given by witnesses at Foodland, and a nearby resident said Hunnel had just returned to the Gruening Park apartment.
Hunnel was arrested on charges of drunken driving, refusing to submit to a breath test, and failing to provide notice of a traffic accident.
According to court documents, Hunnel responded to officers’ request for a blood-alcohol measurement test by saying he “would fight to the death before he would give up any of his bodily fluids.”
He subsequently agreed to a breath test, which recorded a measurement of 0.13 percent, less than twice the legal limit to drive.
He was taken to Lemon Creek Correctional Center and was arraigned at 1:15 p.m. Monday. According to corrections records, he remains in custody.
