An 18-year-old South Kitsap man was arrested for allegedly holding up a local convenience store at gunpoint Sunday, the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office reported.

According to the report, the incident began around 4 p.m. when a 37-year-old clerk at the Parkview Terrace grocery on Shannon Drive said a young man came in and demanded money from her.

She said he was wearing a ski mask and was holding a “old, rusty pistol.”

She said she did not have much money because she had just started work, but she gave him the cash and he ran back to his car and drove away.

The cashier said she recognized the voice and red car as both belonging to her neighbor, a young man who is a regular customer.

She said he had come into the store about 10 minutes before the incident, bought a soda, and left. After another customer came and went, the suspect came in and robbed her.

Deputies responded to the house where the clerk said the customer lived, and spoke to an 18-year-old resident of the home.

After first denying he had been at the store, the teen reportedly admitted that he had robbed the store earlier. He said he then drove to another store in Burley and bought two cartons of cigarettes, spending all of the money he got from the hold-up.

He said the gun was a BB gun, and he had thrown it and the cartons of cigarettes into some brush on the side of the road.

He was booked into Kitsap County Jail for first-degree robbery and originally held under $150,000 bail. On Monday, he was charged with second-degree robbery, and his bail was reduced to $5,000.