Caught on video: Brazen break-in at B.C. pot shop

A brazen overnight break-in at a B.C. pot shop was captured on security video.

The incident happened early Friday in West Kelowna, at Skye Cannabis Co., just before 3 a.m.

Sent to Global News, the video starts with a masked individual holding a small sledgehammer in front of the building while five feet away is a mid-sized pickup truck, with an attached chain and its brake lights on.

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The masked suspect starts smashing the glass door, shattering it, then attaches the chain to it. The command, ‘OK, go!’ is given and the truck briefly bolts forward, with the door and security gates being violently yarded off their hinges.

The first suspect unhooks the chain from the carnage of metal and broken glass, with a second suspect joining in – all while the store’s alarm loudly blares.

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The chain is thrown back into the truck and the two suspects enter the store, with one of them hauling in a large blue recycling bin.

Inside the store, security footage shows one breaking into a rear room while another steals items, throwing them into the bin.

More items are stolen — pre-rolled joints — from a counter before they flee the scene. Total crime time: Around three minutes.

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The owner of Skye Cannabis, Rav Reay, says his phone alerted him. “The glass-break sensors were going off, the motion detector sensors were going off, so we knew right away it was a break-in.”

Reay continued, saying, “It was obvious they wanted to get into the storage room. They went through the first door, which was a hallway door, and then they attempted to get into the storage room. But being steel-reinforced, they weren’t able to get in there.”

Noting they’ve been open for four years and never had a break-in before until this week, Reay said the store sustained a lot of damage for “a handful of pre-rolls.”

Reay said police told him the truck was stolen, “so the plates showing in the video, they’re really not going to make a difference.”

He plans on reinforcing his store’s front end to hopefully prevent another occurrence.

“The customers are p***** off. They know that people like these … they keep doing the same crimes over and over again,” he said.

“There’s a lot of frustration out there, for sure. There’s a lot of anger, for sure, coming from our customers.”

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The store reopened Friday at 9 a.m., with Reay adding, “It’s a bit of a letdown to see things like this happening. But we bounced back real quick. Our staff here is amazing.”

Global News has reached out to West Kelowna RCMP for more information.