Break and enter spree causes damages, lost cash
By Andrew Zwicker
Rossland’s peaceful downtown strip was violated early last Wednesday morning as a group of three men wielding crow bars broke into three downtown shops, apparently on a mission for cash.
The Red Pair and Mountain Life, side by side in the lower level of the old Bank of Montreal building, along with Clancey’s several doors down, were the three businesses targeted.
The group broke through the front door of Red Pair but found no cash onsite. Passing up on the shoes displayed as well as a computer and digital SLR camera sitting out on the counter, the only harm done was to the door itself.
“They were clearly just after money,” commented Stephanie Robinson, proprietor of The Red Pair. “I don’t keep money on the premises over night so they didn’t get anything from me. It was really really weird that nothing was touched. They obviously were not women because they could have at least left with a couple of pairs of new shoes.”
Next door at Mountain Life, the owners weren’t quite so lucky. There, the cash register was broken into and a couple of pairs of sunglasses estimated to be worth roughly $70 were stolen. Once again, however, the crooks seemed to be solely interested in cash as they passed over more valuable items in the store such as the watches beneath the counter.
Clancey’s suffered a cash theft along with a broken front door and a mess made inside. With the break-in not noticed until the first staff arrived early Wednesday morning, the ensuing clean up and reporting also took a couple hours of prime business away from the shop.
As luck would have it, the night auditor of the Prestige Mountainside Resort was across the street, witnessed the crime in progress and called the RCMP. Strolling along Columbia while on a break, the auditor thought it a bit funny for three males at that time of the morning to be going down the steps leading to the front door of The Red Pair. That call may have assisted in keeping the theft to a minimum.
As recommended by Sgt. Hawton of the Trail RCMP, both shops that had cash stolen have since implemented new policies of not keeping cash on site.
Investigations are still ongoing from the incident as the RCMP check into various leads, not the least of which is video evidence from a camera mounted on top of Ferraro’s which caught the three in action.
Such break and enters are rare fare in the Golden City. The recently -eleased crime statistics for the latter half of 2010 show just five break-ins reported in Rossland for the year, a significant drop from the eleven reported in 2009.
“It’s not the best feeling in the world to know someone was in here for sure, but it feels like it was nobody from here in town,” concluded Robinson. “Our community is so great I can’t believe it was anyone that lives here that would do something like this.”
