When Lolly’s Fashion Lounge suffered a smash-and-grab incident recently, the resilient owner vowed not to let it get her down.
The cheery spray-painted message she put on the boarded-up downtown storefront said it all on Thursday afternoon:
“Smash and grab - annoying? Yes.
“Lost wallets returned – priceless. Lollys (heart) Downtown!”
Lollys owner Lois Chadburn is remarkably not bitter.
In fact, she pointed out, it was the first time she had been targeted by thieves in three years of operating the popular downtown business on Wellington Avenue.
“I’ve been on the other side of town, too. Crime does happen and it can happen anywhere,” she said.
Just under 20 pairs of high-end jeans were stolen and Chadburn is chiding herself a little, for not being more proactive in terms of in-store crime prevention.
“I think I got cased the other week. So I knew I had to move that merchandise,” she said.
The thieves were likely at work in downtown Chilliwack in the early hours of March 24. Chadburn remembers rushing to her store sometime before 3 a.m. after the alarm was triggered to find the front window smashed and some jeans stolen.
Police were on-scene quickly with a tracking dog, but to no avail.
There were steel bars on the storefront window, but not spaced tightly enough, she figures.
Still, Chadburn is not cursing the criminal element.
She told The Progress she would rather people to focus on the good and positive things that can and do happen in downtown Chilliwack, like the two wallets that were handed back into her store by Good Samaritans in two separate incidents recently.
“I guess I want people to know that good things do happen but we don’t always hear about them.”
jfeinberg@theprogress.com
twitter.com/CHWKjourno