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SIERRA VISTA — Thousands of dollars worth of antique jewelry was stolen from a Bisbee business after it closed on Monday.
Cachet owner Leila Blair said she noticed something was wrong when she opened the store on Tuesday.
“I came into the shop and I saw that the display case was empty,” Blair said, claiming at least $30,000 in gold jewelry was taken from the display.
“Most of it was antique, all of it was Victorian,” she said. Items stolen include gold rings, bracelets and brooches.
  
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A cash drawer containing $500 to $600 also was broken into, she said.
A Bisbee police news release on Tuesday places the time of the burglary as Monday evening.
“(It happened) sometime last night,” Blair said. “They came in through the skylight.”
Cachet closes at 6 p.m.
Blair has been a business owner in Bisbee for three years, and she said this is not the first time she has had problems like this.
“I was robbed a year ago,” she said.
That incident happened during business hours and resulted in about $4,000 in lost items.
Another store, Czar Jewelry, also was burglarized less than a month ago.
“It all happened in the early morning,” said owner Andrew Laws.
Some 17 pieces of silver jewelry were stolen. “I think the total was less than $1,000,” he said.
Laws believes those responsible for his stolen jewelry had been in the store not long before the items were stolen.
“Pretty much what had been stolen was what these guys had been looking at,” Laws said.
“That’s my gut feeling, that it was one of the guys who had been in earlier.”
Laws said he had noticed the door to his store had been tampered with the next day. Eventually, the thief got in through the front door window.
Unfortunately, Laws doesn’t think that there is much that store owners can do against those who simply smash into a store and leave quickly.
“You can have an alarm, and I don’t think that’s going to stop people that just run in and grab some things,” he said.
A business owner for more than 16 years, Laws said he had been burglarized once before, 15 years ago.
Laws said he has been able to recover some of the more distinctive items that were stolen from his store that have found their way into the hands of locals.
Another problem for jewelers is the high cost of insuring their wares.
“I can’t insure for theft, it’s too expensive,” Blair said.
The cost of insuring her store would be upward of $500 a month, she said.
Blair has offered a $1,000 reward for any information that leads to a conviction and the recovery of the stolen merchandise.
Public’s help sought
The Bisbee Police Department is asking for the public’s help in finding the property taken from Cachet on Monday evening. Police said that if anyone tries to sell or trade the jewelry, or if someone has information about the burglary or the items that were taken, they should call police at 432-2261.
Herald/Review reporter Derek Jordan can be reached at 515-4680 or by e-mail at derek.jordan@svherald.com.
Skylight wrote on Sep 11, 2008 8:32 AM: