60 frozen turkeys gobbled up during theft at N.B. town’s lone grocery store

A grocery store in rural southeast New Brunswick is crying foul after a thief made off with 60 frozen turkeys — just ahead of the holidays.

And it appears the thief or thieves may have tried to come back for seconds.

The theft happened on Saturday night, when someone cut the locks to a refrigerated truck belonging to Salisbury, N.B.’s only grocery store.

“We’ve had thefts but nobody’s ever cut the locks and things like that,” said Sandy Cantelo, who owns Salisbury’s Independent Grocery Store.

“It’s a loss financially but it’s more of a loss and inconvenience for having turkeys for our customers.”

Cantelo said the thieves didn’t actually steal all the turkeys in the trailer; there were some left behind. She’s also sourced extra ones from nearby stores to make sure her customers have what they need.

In a twist, she said security camera footage actually captured what appeared to be someone unsuccessfully attempting to steal more goods on Monday night.

“He tried again last night, cut another lock but he failed to get in,” she said.

Cantelo has filed a report with police, but has yet to hear back.

She said this is the worst instance of theft since she took over the store seven years ago, and it has left customers outraged.

“I think that’s terrible, terrible that someone would do something like that and take meals away from somebody else,” customer Pat Marshall said.

The closest RCMP detachment is more than 20 kilometeres away in Riverview, N.B., which one shopper believes is a contributing factor to crime in the area.

“There’s very little RCMP presence here because there’s no RCMP station here, there’s no RCMP station in Petitcodiac,” Virginia Hopper said.

The town’s chief administrative officer, Austin Henderson, said the town shares residents’ concerns about thefts.

“The Municipality expresses this concern to the RCMP on a regular basis, including as recently as in a meeting with the Commissioner of the RCMP J-Division (provincial Commissioner) in late November,” Henderson wrote in a statement.

“Without being made aware, the RCMP are not able to take action on these types of crime(s), and while it may seem insignificant, reporting each occurrence can play an essential role in RCMP investigations. The Town therefore encourages all residents to utilize the RCMP’s Online Crime Reporting (OCR) tool, or, report these instances to the RCMP’s non-emergency phone line.”

Meanwhile, others think tough economic times have some people getting desperate.

“When I hear food is being stolen that says to me that someone is desperate for food and that’s pretty bad,” shopper Bethany Dykstra said.

Salisbury’s food bank has seen an increase in use and is currently filling double the weekly orders they’ve typically had.

“If they need a turkey they could have gotten one for free because we try and help anybody,” said Pam Martin, the president of the Salisbury Helping Hands food bank.

“Not just clients of the food bank, during Christmas we help anyone who is in need.”

Martin said their shelves and freezer are regularly cleared out due to high demand. They’re handing out 140 Christmas hampers this year, which is a jump from last year.

“This year alone, 2.155 individual people at the end of November (came to see us,) whereas at the end of last year, it was 1,900 so we’ve gone up quite a bit,” she said.

— with a file from Global News’ Rebecca Lau