Thieves who targeted a downtown business last week left empty handed thanks to steps the store’s owner took to protect herself.
At 3:45 a.m. on Feb. 4, a would be robber, or robbers, used a crow bar to smash through the glass door at Finishing Touches home décor on Elizabeth Street. The would-be thieves entered the store, triggering the alarm as they likely looked for money, but were unable to find any and quickly left the store before Okotoks RCMP arrived.
“No money is left on site, they didn’t make a mess or anything other than the glass everywhere,” said storeowner Sarah Kerekes. “They knocked a bunch of stuff at the back getting out the back door but it was very strange for sure.”
Kerekes said she believes the alarm definitely helped avoid any further damage to the store, as it likely scared the intruders away.
“If they know there’s a 10 minutes window they’re not going to hang around, they’re going to see what they can do and they went right to the till and of course our till is open and nothing is left on site,” she said.
Kerekes has been at the downtown location for seven years now and has never had any issues with criminal activity at her store before.
“I really didn’t worry about it because my first thought was we don’t have a lot of things a robber would want, it’s a women’s store, so we don't have high ticket items that they could put in their pockets,” she said. “We’re always on alert, because you’re always aware of someone who’s casing the store or anything like that, we do have money theft prevention in our minds all the time because you do get different characters downtown.”
Okotoks RCMP Cpl. Brent Bliss said they’re working to put the pieces together right now, but so far do not have any substantial leads and don’t believe the robbery is connected to any others in town, in particular other downtown robberies at Boothill Gallery.
“There's been a couple of break and enters with items taken but we don't think they're related just because this individual went in there and I think they were just looking for money and they didn't find what they were looking for,” he said.
Bliss said their general investigation section is following up on leads, including looking at forensic evidence on the crowbar that was left behind as well as trying to analyze video surveillance from the next door properties.
“Unfortunately… what makes it difficult usually they have gloves, hats on, toques, makes it difficult to identify them,” Bliss said. “The crowbar that was used at the scene… and then if we can get some additional information even from the public if they have any ideas then we'll just go from there and see where it goes.”
In the meantime, Bliss said both residential and business owners can learn from Kerekes example by doing everything they can to protect their homes and businesses from potential robberies.
“The business owners are pretty good they all lock and secure their stores,” he said. “Most of them have alarms. We get those alarms that time of day we try to hoof it over there as soon as we can.”
