KELOWNA – It was a difficult day for the owners of a small downtown business in Kelowna on Friday. Duke & Duchess Apparel was broken into early Friday morning and the thief made off with thousands of dollars worth of inventory.
“It takes a huge toll on a small local business like this,” says Cassie Bontoux, owner & operator of Duke & Duchess Apparel. “It’s just me and my fiancé, we pretty much put everything we had in this business so it’s really rough to see this and we don’t know what we are going to do from now. It’s hard.”
It was a rude awakening for Bonthoux who received a call from her security company early Friday morning, informing her there had been a break in.
They do have hope the culprit will be found as the incident was caught on camera. Bonthoux says the break-in happened at around 4:45 a.m. In the surveillance video, the thief is seen using a hammer to smash the front door glass. It also shows him bolting to the back of the store, struggling to navigate through the dark before finding a shelf packed with jeans. He gathered up what looks like a sleeping bag full of them before fleeing, all in under a minute.
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It was a true smash and grab that has set the owners back thousands of dollars in inventory. Earlier in the night, security cameras captured images of someone checking the store out. Bonthoux believes construction on Pandosy near the store played a factor in the incident.
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“The road’s blocked off so there’s no traffic, there’s nobody around so it doesn’t surprise me that he got off and just ran without being seen at all,” says Bonthoux.
She says the first order of business Friday morning was replacing the front door, which cost just over $300. They’re also out a day of sales and about 20 pairs of stolen jeans, worth between $150 and $230 each. Bonthoux says they have insurance for some of the stolen inventory but don’t know yet if it’s worthwhile to file a claim. She says they’ve had close to ten theft attempts before, but all during business hours. This is the first break-in at their store and, she hopes, the last.
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