KELSEYVILLE — District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown”s business, Kelseyville Car Wash, was burglarized sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning. A customer called and reported the crime at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.
In total, the business suffered about $10,000 in damage due to the break-in, and the criminals made off with only $500 to $1,000 in quarters from the coin machine locked inside the building. Rob Brown owns the business with his wife, Kim Brown. They said the crime seemed “senseless” to them because it required a lot of work for those committing the crime to steal relatively little money.
The person or people responsible used a long leverage bar to break through the $1,200 steel door leading into the business. “We think it was more than one person,” said Kim Brown on Monday, as her husband surveyed the damage, pointing out the tool used in the break-in.
Brown and his wife built the car wash in 1997, and in ten years, “nothing major” has happened to the self-service 24-hour car wash, Brown said. “I guess I spoke too soon about Kelseyville”s crime rates, because I just got burglarized,” Brown said with a laugh, in reference to a recent Record-Bee article he disagreed with about Kelseyville”s crime statistics.
“We”ve had some tools stolen, coke machines broken into, maybe half a dozen incidents?For the most part, with the odds of getting hit in 10 years, it hasn”t been that bad,” Brown said.
In the past, Brown has solved the crimes himself, actually catching the responsible persons. “In spite of all this, I still think Kelseyville is the best place to live,” Brown said.
The bar was left at the scene and the next-door business owner of Ace Autobody looked at the tool and confirmed to Brown that the bar was from his business. He told the Record-Bee Monday that the tool was not stolen from inside the business, as it had been left propped up outside. Ace Autobody was not missing any other tools and was not broken into, the owner said.
Brown is offering a $500 reward to anyone with any information leading to an arrest. “We have some pretty good leads. It”s probably someone pretty close by, because the bar that was used was my neighbors.” They had to have gone to Ace Autobody and stolen that bar,” Brown said.
The $10,000 in damage will likely not be covered by the Brown”s insurance company. “We just had liability insurance. It”s rough. The damage will be out-of-pocket,” Brown said.
The steel door leading to the car wash”s interior was pried open at the bottom with the bar. Inside, a $6,000 coin changer was destroyed. “They pried it open and all the quarters must have spilled out and they picked all of them up,” said Brown, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Once they got in they stole a case of air freshener and Armorol (car wash) packets. They stole stupid stuff. If they worked that hard at a real job, they”d be millionaires.”
In addition, a video surveillance system was destroyed and the tape recording the incident was stolen. He said the Lake County Sheriff”s Department is investigating the case and conducting interviews, and Brown is hopeful the case will be solved quickly.
“They were indiscriminate with it. They tore up the security stuff, the VCR, they smashed everything. We”re going to have new upgrades as a result. We”ll be installing all new video that”s computerized so the video will be transmitted to the office. Anyone who does this in the future better be dressed nice ?cause we”re going to take some pictures,” Brown said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lake County Sheriff”s Department. The lead investigator on the case is Detective Nicole Costanza and Sgt. Brian Martin is also assigned to the case. They can be reached at 262-4200. The information can be given anonymously.
Lake County Sheriff Rodney Mitchell said in an email response to questions from the Record-Bee, “We are actively working the case but we wont (sic) offer any comment about details of the investigation or possible suspects at this time.”
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
