Video Shows Driver Plowing Through OC Smoke Shop

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Video footage captured the moment a driver crashed straight through a smoke shop in Orange County Wednesday morning, in a crash that police say was due to the motorist driving under the influence.

According to the Fullerton Police Department, officers were dispatched to the front of Cobra Smoke Shop & Vape Store on Euclid Street at around 3 a.m. in response to the crash.

Authorities said that at about 3 a.m., a white Mercedes-Benz pulled into the parking lot of the smoke shop before seeming to lose control of the vehicle and accelerating into the glass storefront.

Two individuals — the owner in the back of the store and a part-time worker at the cash register — were in the store at the time of the crash but were not injured, police said.

“In the video, you can see it seemed like she stopped and then she put her hands up and then the car just accelerated,” Seja Karim, the manager of the family-owned smoke shop, told The Daily Pilot. “I think she hit the gas instead of the brake and ran into the whole store.”

The owner came out from the back of the store, thinking the car crash was part of a robbery scheme and someone from the car would start stealing inventory, Karim said.

The sole driver of the car was identified by Fullerton Police as a 22-year-old woman from Santa Ana. Authorities said the woman, who was not identified by name, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.