A man is asking the public for help after his SUV was stolen while he was out delivering berries to friends and customers in Toronto on Monday.
In a GoFundMe post, Vitomir Asler, who told Global News his customers call him the Berry Man, said he was making his deliveries as he does every summer and early Fall.
Due to the extreme heat the city is currently experiencing, he decided to park his SUV, a 2017 Honda HR-V, with the AC running in the Mount Pleasant Road and Lawrence Avenue area.
“What started as a normal hot day, evolved in a hot crime scene,” the 61-year-old said in his post, referring to a just-over-three-minute surveillance video posted to YouTube that depicts the entire incident.
The video appears to show Asler pull up and park on the side of the street before exiting and crossing the street to a residence.
As Asler is at the house, just after the one-minute mark of the video, a man appears to slowly bike down the sidewalk past the SUV until he is out of frame.
The suspect appears back in the frame a short time later, drops his bike in the middle of the road and runs towards Asler’s SUV before getting in.
The suspect appears to struggle a few times to get Asler’s SUV working but eventually drives off with it, leaving his bike still in the middle of the road.
“I made a great effort to support my cause and have one reliable car. Now, I am left with NO CAR, NO BERRIES and NO SECURITY. Just a strange feeling of emptiness and victimization,” Asler wrote in the GoFundMe he created asking for $10,000 in order to buy himself a new SUV to be able to make his deliveries.
He said he’s looked to rent a car as well, but the quotes have been so high that it would be hard to justify doing that and keep up his business.
“I cannot cover like $1,500 for two weeks. There is no way,” he told Global News in an interview.
Asler said he drives to a farm north of Barrie daily to pick up his fruit shipment before delivering to customers in Toronto.
He said the season for berries is particularly short, and now his business has come to a halt without his car.
Asler says he moved to Canada from Serbia 30 years ago and always thought of Toronto as a safe city, having never been the victim of a crime.
“I was in complete disbelief at what happened. Because I really never, ever — especially in Toronto — had any bad experience myself,” he said.
Asler said to complicate matters further, the car was leased and he doesn’t know if insurance will cover costs associated with the theft because he left the vehicle running.
He said he parked the car maybe 20 metres away and it was only going to take a couple of minutes to complete the delivery.
“Did I make a mistake? Probably. Has it been extremely hot? Yes,” he said, adding that he normally never leaves his car running.
Police said there has been a year-over-year increase in the number of vehicle thefts in the city from 2016 to 2020. There were 5,820 vehicle thefts reported in 2020 with only 418 of those cases cleared.
Toronto police Const. Edward Parks told Global News the theft of Asler’s car is under investigation and officers are trying to locate it.
“The Toronto police wants to make the public aware — any individual that owns a motor vehicle — that it’s very important that when they leave their motor vehicle that the vehicle is locked,” Parks added.
Meanwhile, Asler said he wanted to thank everyone who has supported his business and bought berries and those who have contributed to his GoFundMe so far. As of Thursday evening, just over $1,000 had been raised.
— With files from Catherine McDonald
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